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THE WORKS 



OF THE 



EIGHT REVEEEND JOSEPH HALL, D,D. 

BISHOP OP EXETER AND AFTERWARDS OF NORWICH. 



A NEW EDITION, 

REVISED AND CORRECTEDj WITH SOME ADDITIONS, 



BY 

PHILIP WYNTEE, D.D. 

PRESIDENT OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, 



VOL. VIII. 




1 '^>^ ^' 



OXFORD: 

AT THE UNIVERSITY PEESS. 
MDCCCLXIII. 



C O N T E N J' S. 



Page 

The Hicathings of the Devout Soul i— 21 

Sohloquies : or Holy Self-Conferences of the Devout Soul .... 22 — 93 

The Soul's Farewell to Earth, and Approaches to Heaven .... 94 — 1 14 

The Great Mystery of Godliness 1 15— 137 

The Invisible World discovered to Spiritual Eyes 138 — 218 

A Brief Sum of the Principles of Religion 219 — 221 

Solomon's Divine Arts of, i. Ethics. 2. Politics, 3. Economics. . 222 

Solomon's Ethics or Morals 223—271 

Episcopal Admonition 272 

A Short Answer to those Nine Arguments which are brought 

against the Bishops sitting in Parliament 273 — 276 

A Speech in Parliament 276 — 278 

A Speech in Parhament in Defence of the Canons made in 

Convocation 278 — 28 1 

A Speech in Parliament concerning the Power of Bishops in 

Secular Things 281—284 

A Letter sent to a Gentleman concerning Slanderous Reports . . 285—287 

An Apoiogetical Letter to a Person of Quahty 288 — 292 

'J'he Revelation Unrevealed : concerning the Thousand Years' 

Reign of the Saints with Christ upon Earth 293 — 350 

'J'he Peace of Rome, whereto is prefixed a Serious Dissuasive 

from Popery 35 1 — 479 

The Honour of the Married Clergy maintained 480—^630 

The Old Religion 631— 71S 

'J'iie Reconciler, with an Apoiogetical Advertisement to the 

Reader . 7 19 — 757 

Certain Catholic Propositions 758 — 762 

A Letter Parsenetical to a worthy Knight ready to revolt from 

the Religion established 763 — 767 

A Plain and Familiar Explication of Christ's Presence in the 
Sacrament of His Body and [ilood, out of the Doctrine of the 

Church of England 76S — 776 



THE BREATHINGS 

OF 

THE DEVOUT SOUL. 



I. — Blessed Lord God, thou callest me to obedience, and fain 
would I follow thee ; but what good can this wretched heart of 
mine be capable of except thou put it there ? Thou knowest I 
cannot so much as wish to think well without thee. I have 
strong powers to offend thee : my sins are my own : but whence 
should I have any inclination to good but from thee, who art only 
and all good ? Lord, work me to what thou requirest, and then 
require what thou wilt. 

n. — Lord God, whither need I go to seek thee ! Thou art so 
with me, as that I cannot move but in thee. 1 look up to heaven : 
there I know thy Majesty most manifests itself; but withal, I 
know, that being here thou art never out of thy heaven, for it is 
thy presence only that makes heaven. O, give me to enjoy thee, 
in this lowest region of thy heavenly habitation: and as, in respect 
of ray natural being, I live and move in thee; so let me not live 
and move spiritually, but with thee and to thee. 

III. — Whither now, O whither do ye rove, O my thoughts? 
Can ye hope to find rest in any of these sublunary contentments ? 
Alas, how can they yield any stay to you, that have no settlement 
in themselves ? Is there not enough in the Infinite Good to take 
you up, but that ye will be wandering after earthly vanities ? O 
my Lord, how justly mightest thou cast me off with scorn, for 
casting any affective glances upon so base a rival ! Truly, Lord, 
I am ashamed of this my hateful inconstancy ; but it is thou only 
that must remedy it. thou that art the Father of mercies, 
pity my wildness and weak distractions. Take thou my heart to 
thee : it is thine own : keep it with thee : tie it close to thee by 
the cords of love ; that it may not so much as cast down an eye 
upon this wretched and perishing world. 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. B 



2 The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 

IV. — Lord, I confess, to my shame, thou art a great loser by 
me : for, besides my not improving of thy favours, I have not 
kept even reckonings 'n-ith tliee ; I have not justly tallied up thy 
inestimable benetits. Thy very privative mercies are both with- 
out and beyond my account ; for every evil that I am free from 
is a new blessing from thee : that I am out of bondage, that I am 
out of pain and misery, that I am out of the dominion of sin, out 
of the tyranny of Satan, out of the agonies of an afflicted soul, 
out of the torments of hell ; Lord, how unspeakable mercies are 
these ! yet when did I bless thee for any of them ? Thy positive 
bounties I can feel, but with a benumbed and imperfect Sense. 
Lord, do thou enlarge and intenerate my heart : make me truly 
sensible, as of my good received, so of my escaped evils ; and take 
thou to thyself the glory of them both. 

V. — Ah, my Lord God, what heats and colds do I feel in my 
soul ! Sometimes I find myself so vigorous in grace that no thought 
of doubt dare show itself, and methinks I durst challenge my 
hellish enemies ; another while I feel myself so dejected and 
heartless, as if I had no interest in the God of my salvation, 
nor never had received any certain pledges of his favour. What 
shall I say to this various disposition ? Whether, Lord, is it my 
wretchedness to suffer myself to be robbed of thee, for the time, 
by temptation ? or whether is this the course of thy proceedings 
in the dispensation of thy graces to the sons of men ; that thou 
wilt have the breathings of thy Spirit, as where, so how, and 
when thou pleasest ? Surely, my God, if I did not know thee 
constant to thine everlasting mercies, I should be utterly dis- 
heartened with these sad intervals : now, when my sense fails 
me, I make use of my faith, and am no less sure of thee, even 
when I feel thee not, than when I find the clearest evidences of 
thy gracious presence. Lord, shine upon me with the light of 
thy countenance, if it may be, always ; but whenever that is 
clouded, strengthen thou my faith : so shall I be safe, even when 
I am comfortless. 

YL — my God, I am justly ashamed to think what favours I 
have received from thee, and what poor returns I have made to 
thee. Truly, Lord, I must needs say thou hast thought nothing 
either in earth or in heaven too good for me ; and I, on the other 
side, have grudged thee that weak and worthless obedience which 
thou hast required of me. Alas ! Avhat pleasure could I have done 
to thee who art infinite, if I had sacrificed my whole self to thee. 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 3 

as thou commandest ? Thou art and wilt be thyself, though the 
world were not : it is I, I only, that could be a gainer by this 
happy match ; which, in my own wrong, I have unthankfuUy 
neglected. I see it is not so much what we have, as how we 
employ it. thou, that hast been so bountiful in heaping thy 
rich mercies upon me, vouchsafe to grant me yet one gift more : 
give me grace and power to improve all thy gifts to the glory of 
the Giver ; otherwise, it had been better for me to have been poor 
than ungrateful. 

VII. — Ah, Lord, what struggling have I with my weak fears ! 
how do I anticipate my evils by distrust ! What shall I do when 
I am old ? How shall I be able to endure pain ? how shall I pass 
through the horrid gates of death ? 0, my God, where is my 
faith, that I am thus surprised ? Had I not thee to uphold and 
strengthen ray soul, well might I tremble and sink under these 
cares ; but now, that I have the assurance of so strong an helper 
as commands all the powers of heaven, earth, and hell, what a 
shame is it for me to give so much way to my Avretched infidelity 
as to punish myself with the expectation of future evils ! for the 
victory that overcomes the world, even our faith! i John v. 4. 
Thou, God, art my refuge and strength, a very present help 
in trouble. Therefore ivill I not fear, though the earth he re- 
tnoved, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of 
the sea, Psalm xlvi. 1,2. 

Vni. — Lord, I made account my days should have been but 
an inch, but thou hast made them a span long, Psalm xxxix. 5, 
having drawn out the length of a crazy life beyond the period of 
my hopes. It is for something, sure, that thou hast thus long 
respited me from my grave, which looked for me many years ago. 
Here I am, O my God, attending thy good pleasure. Thou 
knowest best what thou hast to do with me : dispose of me as 
thou wilt : only make me faithful in all thy services ; resolute, to 
trust myself with thee in all events ; careful, to be approved of 
thee in all my ways ; and crown my decayed age with such fruits 
as may be pleasing to thee, and available to the good of many: 
lastly, let me live to thee, and die in thee. 

IX. — How oft. Lord, have I wondered to see the strange 
carriage of thine administration of these earthly affairs ; and 
therein to see thy marvellous wisdom, power, goodness, in fetch- 
ing good out of evil ! Alas ! we wretched men are apt enough to 
fetch the worst of evils out of the greatest good ; Turning the 

B 2 



4 The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 

grace o/'thee our Ood into wantonness, Jude4: but how have I 
seen thee of lifeless stones to raise up children to Abraham; of 
sinners, to make saints ! out of a desperate confusion, to fetch 
order ; out of a bloody war, an happy peace ; out of resolutions 
of revenge, love ; out of the rock, waters ; out of a persecutor, 
an apostle ! How can I be discouraged with unlikelihoods, when 
I see thee work by contraries ? It is not for me, O my God, to 
examine or prejudge thy counsels : take what ways thou wilt, so 
thou bring me to thine own end : all paths shall be direct that 
lead me to blessedness. 

X. — How many good purposes;, my God, have I taken up. 
and let fall to the ground again without effect ! how teeming 
hath this barren womb of my heart been of false conceptions ! 
but especially, when thine hand hath been smart and heavy upon 
me in mine affliction, how have I tasked myself with duties, and 
revived my firm resolutions of more strict obedience ; which yet, 
upon the continuance of my better condition, I have slackened ! 
Lord, it is from thee that 1 purposed well : it is from my own 
sinful weakness that I failed in my performances. If any good 
come from me, the will and the deed must be both thine : The 
very preparations of the heart are from thee, Prov. xvi. i ; and 
if J have devised my way, it must be thou that directest my steps, 
Prov. xvi. 9. God, do thou ripen and perfect all the good 
motions that thou puttest into my soul, and make my health but 
such as my sickness promised. 

XI. — Every man. Lord, is unwilhng that his name should die : 
we are all naturally ambitious of being thought on when we are 
gone : those that have not living monuments to perpetuate them 
affect to have dead : if Absalom have not a son, he will erect a 
pillar. Yet, when we have all done, time eats us out at the last : 
There is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for 
ever ; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all he 
forgotten, Eccles. ii. 16. God, let it be my care and ambition, 
whatever become of my memory here below, that my name may 
be recorded in heaven. 

XII. — Thy wise providence, God, hath so ordered it, that 
every man's mind seeks and finds contentment in something; 
otherwise it could not be, since we must meet with so frequent 
crosses in the world, but that man's life would be burdensome to 
him. One takes pleasure in his hawk or hound ; another, in his 
horses and furnitures : one, in fair buildings ; another, in pleasant 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 5 

walks and beautiful gardens : one, in travelling abroad ; another, 
in the enjoying of the profits and pleasures of his home : one, in a 
comfortable wife ; another, in loving and dutiful children. But 
when all is done, if there be not somewhat else to uphold the 
heart in the evil day, it must sink. God, do thou possess my 
soul of thee : let me place all my felicity in the fruition of thine 
infinite goodness ; so I am sure the worst of the world hath not 
power to render me other than happy. 

XIII. — Lord God, under how opposite aspects do I stand 
from the world ! how variously am I construed by men ! One 
pities my condition ; another praises my patience : one favours 
me, out of the opinion of some good that he thinks he sees in 
me ; another dislikes me for some imagined evil. Wliat are the 
eyes or tongues of men to me? Let me not know what they say 
or think of me, and what am I the better or worse for them. 
They can have no influence upon me without my own appre- 
hension. All is, in what terms I stand with thee, my God : if 
thou be pleased to look upon me with the eye of thy tender 
mercy and compassion, what care I to be unjustly browbeaten of 
the world ? If I may be blessed with thy favour, let me be made 
a gazingstock to the world, to angels, and to men. 

XIV. — Speak, Lord., for thy servant heareth : what is it which 
thou wouldcst have me to do, that I may find rest to my soul ? I 
am willing to exercise myself in all the acts of piety which thou 
requirest : I am ready to fast, to pray, to read, to hear, to medi- 
tate, to communicate, to give alms, to exhort, admonish, reprove, 
comfort, where thou biddest me ; and if there be any other duty 
appertaining to devotion or mercy, let me serve thee in it : but 
alas ! O my God, howsoever I knoAv these works are in themselves 
well-pleasing unto thee ; yet, as they fall from my wretchedness, 
they are stained with so many imperfections, that I have more 
reason to crave pardon for them than to put confidence in them ; 
and if I could perform them never so exquisitely, yet one sin is 
more than enough to dash all my obedience. I see then, O Lord, 
I well see, there is no act that I can be capable to do unto thee 
wherein I can find any repose ; it must be thine act to me which 
only can affect it. It is thy gracious word. Come unto me all 
ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I ivill give you rest, 
Matth. xi. 28. Lo, this rest must be thy gift, not my earning : 
and what can be freer than gift? Thou givest it then, but to 
those that come to thee ; not to those that come not : to those 



6 The Breathings of the Devout Soul. * 

that come to thee laden and labouring under the sense of their 
own wrctcliedness ; not to the proud and careless. Saviour, 
thj sinner is sufficiently laden with the burden of his iniquities ; 
lade thou ine yet more with true penitent sorrow for my sins, and 
enable me then to come unto thee by a lively faith. Take thou 
the praise of thine own work. Give me the grace to come, and 
give me rest in coming. 

XV. — blessed Saviour, what strange variety of conceits do I 
find concerning thy thousand years' reign ! What riddles are in 
that prophecy, which no human tongue can aread ! Where to fix 
the beo-innino- of that marvellous millenarv and where the end ; 
and what manner of reign it shall be, whether temporal or spi- 
ritual, on earth or in heaven ; undergoes as many constructions as 
there are pens that have undertaken it; and yet, when all is 
done, 1 see thine apostle speaks only of the souls of thy martyrs 
rcio-ning so lono; with thee : not of tliA' reignina: on earth so long; 
with those martyrs. How busy are the tongues of men, how are 
their brains taken up with the indeterminable construction of this 
enigmatical truth, when, iu the mean time, the care of thy spi- 
ritual reign in their hearts is neglected ! O ray Saviour, while 
others weary themselves with the disquisition of thy personal 
reign here upon earth for a thousand years, let it be the whole 
bent and study of my soul to make sure of my personal reign 
with thee in heaven to all eternity. 

XVI. — Blessed be thy name, God, who hast made a good 
use even of hell itself. How many atheous hearts have been con- 
vinced by the very operations of devils ! Those which would, with 
the stupid Sadducees, persuade themselves there are no spirits ; 
yet, when they have sensibly found the marvellous eifects wrought 
even bv the base instruments of Satan, they have been forced to 
confess, Doubtless there is a God that rules the ivorld; for so 
great powers of evil spirits must necessarily evince the greater 
powers of good. It is of thy wise and holy dispensation that thy 
good angels do not so frequently exhibit themselves, and give so 
visible demonstrations of their presence to thy saints, as the evil 
angels do to their vassals, though they are ever as present and 
more powerful. What need they, when thou so mightily over- 
rulest those malignant spirits, that thou forcest from them thine 
own glory, and advantage to thy chosen ? Lord, how much more 
shall all thy other creatures serve to thy praise, when thy very 
hellish enemies shall proclaim thy justice, goodness, omnipotence ! 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 7 

XVII. — Speculation, Lord, is not more easy than practice 
is difficult. How many have we known, who, as it was said of 
the philosophers of old, know how to speak well, but live ill ! 
How many have written books of chymistry, and given very con- 
fident directions for the finding out of that precious stone of the 
philosophers ! but how many have indeed made gold ? Practice is 
that which thou, O God, chiefly requirest and respectest; who 
hast said, If ye know these things, blessed are ye if ye do them ; 
knoivledge j^uffeth up, but love edifieth, i Cor. viii. i . O Lord, 
do thou enhghten mine eyes with the knowledge of thy will ; 
but, above all, do thou rectify my affections : guide my feet into 
the ways of thy commandments ; a2:)ply my heart to fulfil thy 
statutes alway, Psalm cxix. 35,113; and pros2Jer thou the 
luork of mj liands upon me, pjrosper thou my handyiuork, 
xc. 17. 

XVin. — How oft have I v/ondered, Lord, at the boldness of 
those men, who knowing they must shortly die, yet dare do 
those things which will draw upon them eternity of torments! 
What shall I say, but. The fool hath said in his heart, There is 
no God? Surely men love themselves well enough, and would 
be loath to do that which would procure them an inevitable mi- 
sery and pain. Did they therefore believe there were another 
world, and that they must be called to a strict reckoning for all 
their actions, and be doomed to an everlasting death for their 
wicked deeds, they durst not, they could not do those acts, which 
should make them eternally miserable. Let me sav to the most 
desperate ruffian, " There is poison in this cup : drink this 
draught, and thou diest ;" he would have the wit to keep his lips 
close, and cast the potion to the ground. Were it not for their 
infidelity, so would men do, to the most plausible but deadly offers 
of sin. Lord, since I know thy righteous judgments, teach me 
to tremble at them ; restrain thou my feet from every evil way, 
and teach me so to walk, as one that looks every hour to appear 
before thy just and dreadful tribunal. 

XIX. — The longer I hve, my God, the more do I wonder 
at all the works of thine hands. I see such admirable artifice in 
the very least and most despicable of all thy creatures, as doth 
every day more and more astonish my observation. I need not 
look so far as heaven for matter of marvel, though therein thou 
art infinitely glorious ; while I have but a spider in my window, 
or a bee in my garden, or a worm under my feet, every one of 



8 Tlie Breathings of the Devout Soul. 

these overcomes me with a just amazement: yet can I see no 
more than their very outsides ; their inward forra,*which gives 
their being and operations, I cannot pierce into. The less 1 can 
know, Lord, the more let me wonder ; and the less I can sa- 
tisfy myself with marvelling at thy works, the more let me adore 
the majesty and omnipotence of thee that wroughtest them. 

XX, — Alas ! my Lord God, what poor, weak, imperfect ser- 
vices are those, even at the best, that I can present thee withal ! 
How lean, lame, and blemished sacrifices do I bring to thine 
altar ! I know thou art worthy of more than my soul is capable 
to perform ; and fain would I tender thee the best of thine own ; 
but u'hat I ivould, that I do not, Rom. vii. 15, yea, cannot do. 
Surely, had I not to do with an infinite mercy, I might justly 
look to be punished for my very obedience. But now. Lord, my 
impotence redounds to the praise of thy goodness; for were I 
more answerable to thy justice, the glory of thy mercy would be 
so less eminent in my remission and acceptance. Here I am 
before thee, to await thy good pleasure : thou knowest whether it 
be better to give me more ability, or to accept of that poor 
abihty thou hast given me : but since when thou hast given me 
most, I shall still and ever stand in need of thy forgiveness, let 
my humble suit be to thee always, rather for pardon of my de- 
fects, than for a supply of thy graces. 

XXL — my God, how do I see many profane and careless 
Bouls spend their time in jollity and pleasure ! The harp and the 
viol, the tabret and the pipe, and wine, are in their feasts, 
Isaiah v. 12; while I, that desire to walk close with thee, in all 
conscionable obedience, droop and languish under a dull heavi- 
ness and heartless dejection. I am sure I have a thousand times 
more cause of joy and cheerfulness than the merriest of all those 
wild and jovial spirits : they have a world to play withal ; but I 
have a God to rejoice in : their sports are trivial and momentary; 
ray joy is serious and everlasting : one dram of my mirth is worth 
a pound of theirs. But I confess, Lord, how much I am want- 
ing to myself in not stirring up this holy fire of spiritual joy, but 
suffering it to he raked up under the dead ashes of a sad neglect. 
thou, who art the God of hope, quicken this heavenly affection 
in my soul, and Jill me with all joy and peace in believing, 
Rom. XV. 13. Make my heart so much more light than the world- 
ling's, by how much my estate is happier. 

XXn. — What shall I do, Lord? I strive and tug, what I may. 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 9 

with my natural corruptions, and with the spiritual wickednesses 
in high places (Eph. vi. I2.j, which set upon my soul; hut some- 
times I am foiled, and go halting out of the field. It is thy mercy 
that I live, being so fiercely assaulted by those principalities and 
powers : it were more than w^onder if I should escape such hands 
without a wound. Even that holy servant of thine, who strove 
with thine angel for a blessing, went hmping away, though he 
prevailed : what marvel is it that so weak a wretch as I, striving 
with many evil angels for the avoidance of a curse, come off with 
a maim or a scar ? But, blessed be thy name, the wounds that I 
receive are not mortal ; and when I fall, it is bu t to my knees, 
whence I rise with new courage and hopes of victory. Thou, who 
art the God of all power, and keepest the keys of hell and death, 
hast said, Resist the devil, and he will flee from you : Lord, I 
do and will, by thy merciful aid, still and ever resist : make thou 
my faith as steadfast as my will is resolute. 0, still teach thou 
my hands to war, and my fingers to fight., Psalm cxliv. i . Arm 
thou my soul with strength ; and at last, according to thy gracious 
promise, crown it with victory. 

XXIII. — Lord God, how ambitious, how covetous of know- 
ledge is this soul of mine ! As the eye is not satisfied with seeing, 
nor the ear filled with hearing, Eccles. i. 8, no more is the mind 
of man with understanding : yea, so insatiable is my heart, that 
the more I know, the more I desire to know, and the less I think 
I know. Under heaven there can be no bounds set to this intel- 
lectual appetite. O, do thou stop the mouth of my soul with thy- 
self, who art infinite. Whom have I in heaven hut thee? and 
there is none ujjon earth that I desire besides thee, Psalm Ixxiii. 25. 
Alas ! Lord, if I could know all creatures, with all their forms," 
qualities, workings ; if I could know as much as innocent Adam 
or wise Solomon ; yea more, if I could know all that is done in 
earth or heaven ; what were my soul the better, if it have not 
attained the knowledge of thee ? since, as the Preacher hath most 
wisely observed, in much tuisdom is much grief; and he that 
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow, Eccles. i. 18. 0, then, 
set off my heart from affecting that knowledge whose end is 
sorrow, and fix it upon that knowledge which brings, everlasting 
life : And this is life eternal, to knoiv thee the only true Qod, 
and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent, John xvii. 3 . 

XXIV. — my God, what miserable uncertainties there are in 
these worldly hopes ! But yesterday I made account of an eminent 



10 The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 

advantage of my estate, which now ends in a deep loss. How did 
we lately feed ourselves with the hope of a firm and during peace^ 
which now shuts up in too much blood I How confidently did I 
rely upon the promised favour of some great friends, which now 
leave me in the suds, as the scorn of (a miscalled) fortune. In 
how slippery places, Lord, do our feet stand ! if that may be 
said to stand, which is ever sliding, never fixed : and not more 
slippery than brittle ; so as there is not more danger of falling 
than of sinkinor. With thee. God, with thee only is a constant 
immutability of happiness : there let rae seek it ; there let me 
find it : and overlooking all the fickle objects of this vain world, 
let my soul pitch itself upon that blessed immortality which, ere 
long, it hopes to enjoy with thee. 

XXV. — Lord God, what a wearisome circle do I walk in here 
below ! I sleep, and dress, and work, and eat, and work again, 
and eat again, and undress, and sleep again ; and thus wearing 
out my time, find a satiety in all these, troublesome. Lord, when 
shall I come to that state wherein 1 shall do nothing but enjoy 
thee, do nothing but praise thee ; and in that one work shall find 
such infinite contentment, that my glorified soul cannot wish to do 
any other : and shall therein alone bestOAV a blessed eternity ? 

XXVL — God, how troublesome and painful do I find this sun 
of thine, whose scorching beams beat upon my head ! and yet 
this excellent creature of thine is that to which, under thee, we 
are beholden for our very life ; and it is thy great blessing to the 
earth, that it may enjoy these strong and forcible rays from it. 
O, who shall be able to endure the burning flames of thv wrath, 
which thou intendest for the punishment a,nd everlasting torment 
of thine enemies ! And if men shall blaspheme the name of thee, 
the God of heaven, (Kev. xvi. 9,) for the great heat of that bene- 
ficial creature, what shall we think they will do for that fire which 
shall be consuming them to all eternity ? Lord, keen mv soul 
from those flames, which shall be ever burning, and never either 
quenched or abated ! 

XXVH. — Which way, Lord, which way can I look, and not 
see some sad examples of misery? One wants his limbs, with 
Mephibosheth ; another, his sight, with Bartimaeus ; a third, with 
Lazarus, wants bread and a whole skin : one is pained in his 
body ; another, plundered of his estate ; a third, troubled in 
mind : one is pined in prison ; another, tortured on the rack ; a 
third, lauguisheth under the loss of a dear son, or wife, or husband. 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 11 

Who am I. Lord, that, for the present, I enjoy an immunity 
from all these sorrows? I am sure none groans under them that 
have deserved them more. It is thy mercy, thy mere mercy, 
my o-ood God, that any of these calamities liave fallen beside 
me. make me truly thankful for thine infinite goodness ; and 
yet only so sensible of thy gracious indulgence this way, as that 
when any of these evils shall seize upon me, I may be no more 
dejected in the sense of them, than I am now overjoyed with the 
favour of their forbearance. 

XXVIII. — blessed God, what variety of gifts hast thou scat- 
tered amongst the sons of men ! To one, thou hast given vigour 
of body ; to another, agility ; beauty, to a third : to one, depth 
of judgment; to another, quickness of apprehension ; to one, rea- 
diness and rarity of invention ; to another, tenacity of memory : 
to one, the knowledge of Uberal arts ; to another, the exquisite- 
ness of manuary skill : to one, worldly wealth ; to another, ho- 
noui' : to one, a wise heart ; to another, an eloquent tongue : to 
one, more than enough ; to another, contentment with a little : to 
one, valour ; to another, sagacity. These favours, Lord, thou 
hast promiscuously dispersed amongst both thy friends and ene- 
mies : but, O ! how transcendent are those spiritual mercies which 
thou hast reserved for thine own ; the graces of heavenly wisdom, 
lively faith, fervent charity, firm hope, joy in the Holy Ghost, 
and all the rest of that divine bevy ! For any competency of the 
least of thy common blessings, I desire to be thankful to thy 
bounty ; for which of them, God, can I either merit or requite ? 
but for a soul truly and eagerly ambitious of those thy best 
mercies ! O, let me ever long for them, and ever be insatiable of 
them. 0, do thou fill my heart with the desire of them, and let 
that desire never find itself filled. 

XXIX. — How comfortable a style is that, God, which thine 
apostle gives to thy heaven, while he calls it the inheritance of 
the saints in light ! None can come there but saints : the rooms 
of this lower world are taken up, commonly, with wicked men, 
with beasts, with devils ; but into that heavenly Jerusalem no 
unholy thing can enter. Neither can any saint be excluded 
thence : each of them have not only a share, but an entire right 
to thy glory. And how many just titles are there, O Saviour, to 
that region of blessedness ! It is thy Father^s gift : it is thy pur- 
chase : it is thy saints' inheritance ; theirs, only in thy right : by 
thy gracious adoption they are sons, and, as sons, heirs, coheirs 



12 The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 

with thee of that blessed patrimony, Eom. i-iii. 17; so feofFed 
upon them, so possessed of them, that thej can never be disseised. 
And, Lord, how glorious an inheritance it is ! an inheritance in 
Hf^ht, in hght incomprehensible, in light inaccessible. Lo, the 
most spiritual of all thy visible creatures is light ; and yet this 
light is but the effect and emanation of one of thy creatures, the 
sun, and serves only for the illumination of this visible world : 
but that supernal light is from the all-glorious beams of thy 
divine Majesty, diffusing themselves to those blessed spirits, both 
angels and souls of thy saints, who live in the joyful fruition of 
thee to all eternity. Alas ! Lord, we do here dwell in darkness, 
and under an uncomfortable opacity, while thy face is clouded 
from us with manifold temptations : there above, with thee is 
pure light, a constant noontide of glory : I am here under a 
miserable and obscure wardship. teach me to despise the best 
of earth ; and ravish my soul with a longing desire of being pos- 
sessed of that blessed inheritance of the saints in light. 

XXX. — What outward blessing can be sweeter than civil 
peace? what judgment more heavy than that of the sword? Yet, 
Saviour, there is a peace which thou disclaimest ; and there is 
a sword which thou challengest to bring : peace with our cor- 
ruptions is war against thee ; and that war in our bosoms, wherein 
the Spirit fighteth against the flesh, is peace with thee. 0, let 
thy good Spirit raise and foment this holy and intestine war 
more and more within me. And as for my outward spiritual 
enemies, how can there be a victory without war ? and how can I 
hope for a crown without victory ? do thou ever gird me with 
strength to the battle; enable thou me to resist unto blood: 
make me faithful to the death, that thou mayest give me the 
crown of Hfe. 

XXXL — Lord God, how subject is this wretched heart of 
mine to repining and discontentment ! If it may not have what it 
would, how ready it is, like a froward child, to throw away what 
it hath ! I know and feel this to be out of that natural pride 
which is so deep rooted in me ; for, could I be sensible enough of 
my own unworthiness, I should think everv thing too good, every 
thing too much for me. My very being, Lord, is more than I 
am ever able to answer thee ; and how could I deserve it, when I 
was not ? but, that I have any helps of my well-being here, or hopes 
and means of my being glorious hereafter, how far is it beyond 
the reach of my soul ! Lord, let me find my own nothingness : so 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 13 

shall I be thankful for a little; and, in my very want, bless 

thee. 

XXXII.— Where art thou, O my God? whither hast thou 
withdrawn thyself? It is not long since I found thy comfortable 
presence with my soul : now I miss thee, and mourn and languish 
for thee. Nay, rather, where art thou, my soul ? My God is 
where he was ; neither can be any other than himself: the change 
is in thee, whose inconstant disposition varies continually, and 
cannot find itself fixed upon so blessed an object. It will never 
be better with me, my God, until it shall please thee to sta- 
hlish my heart with thy free Spirit, Psalm li. 1 2, and to keep it 
close to thee, that it may not be carried away with vain dis- 
tractions, with sinful temptations. Lord, my God, as thou art 
always present with me, and canst no more be absent than not be 
thyself; so let me be always with thee, in an humble and faithful 
acknowledgment of thy presence : as I can never be out of thine 
all-seeing eye, so let mine eyes be ever bent upon thee, who art 
invisible. Thou, that hast given me eyes, improve them to thy 
glory and ray happiness. 

XXXIII. — My bosom, Lord, is a Rebekah^s womb : there 
are twins striving within it ; a Jacob and Esau ; the old man and 
the new. While I was in the barren state of my unregeneration, 
all was quiet Avithin me : now, this strife is both troublesome and 
painful ; so as nature is ready to say, If it he so, why am I thus? 
Gen. XXV. 22. But withal, my God, I bless thee for this happy 
unquietness ; for I know there is just cause of comfort in these 
inward strugglings : my soul is now not unfruitful, and is con- 
ceived with an holy seed, which wrestles with my natural cor- 
ruptions ; and if my Esau have got the start in the priority of 
time, yet my Jacob shall follow him hard at the heel, and happily 
supplant him ; and though I must nourish them both as mine, 
yet I can, through thy grace, imitate thy choice, and say with 
thee, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. Blessed God, 
make thou that word of thine good in me, that the elder shall 
serve the younger. 

XXXIV. — Alas! my Lord God, how small matters trouble 
me ! every petty occurrence is ready to rob me of my peace ; so 
as, methinks, I am like some little cockboat in a rough sea, 
which every billow topples up and down, and threats to sink. I 
can chide this weak pusillanimity in myself; but it is thou that 
must redress it. Lord, work my heart to so firm a settled ness 



14 The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 

upon thee, that it may never be shaken ; no, not with the violent 
gusts of temptation, much less with the easy gales of secular mis- 
accidents. Even when I am hardest pressed in the multitude of 
the sorrows of my heart, let thy comforts refresh my soul : but 
for these slight crosses, teach me to despise them, as not worthy 
of my notice, much less of my vexation. Let my heart be taken 
up with thee ; and then, what care I, whether the world smile or 
frown ? 

XXXV. — What a comfort it is, Saviour, that thou art tJte 
firstfruits of them that sleep ! Those that die in thee do but 
sleep. Thou saidst so once of thy Lazarus, and mayest say so of 
him again ; he doth but sleep still. His first sleep was but short ; 
this latter, though longer, is no less true ; out. of which he shall 
no less surely awake at thy second call, than he did before at thy 
first. His first sleep and waking was singular ; this latter is the 
same with ours : we all lie down in our bed of earth, as sure to 
wake as ever we can be to shut our eyes. In and from thee, 
blessed Saviour, is this our assurance, who art the firstfridts of 
them that sleep. The first handful of the firstfruits was not 
presented for itself, but for the whole field wherein it grew : the 
virtue of that oblation extended itself to the whole crop. Neither 
didst thou, blessed Jesu, rise again for thyself only; but the 
power and virtue of thy resurrection reaches to all thine : so thy 
Chosen Vessel tells us, Christ the firstfruits, afterward they 
that are Christ's at his coming, i Cor. xv. 23. So as, though 
the resurf^ection he of all the dead, both just and unjust, Acts 
xxiv. 15; yet, to rise by the power of thy resurrection is so 
proper to thine own, as that thou, Saviour, hast styled it the 
resurrection of the just, Luke xiv. 14; while the rest shall be 
dragged out of their graves, by the power of thy Godhead, to 
their dreadful judgment. Already, therefore, Jesu, are we 
risen in thee, and as sure shall rise in our own persons. The 
locomotive faculty is in the head : thou, who art our Head, art 
risen ; we, who are thy members, must and shall follow. Say 
then, O my dying body, say boldly unto death, Rejoice not over 
me, mine enemy; for though I fall, yet I shall rise again, 
Micah vii. 8. Yea, Lord, the virtue of thy firstfruits diffuseth 
itself, not to our rising only, but to a blessed immortality of these 
bodies of ours ; for as thou didst rise immortal and glorious, so 
shall we by and with thee, ivlio shalt change these vile bodies, 
and make them like to thy gloriotis body, Phil. iii. 21. The 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 15 

sarae power that could shake off death can put on glory and 
majesty. Lay thee down therefore, my body, quietly and 
cheerfully, and look to rise in another hue : thou art sown in 
corruption, thou shalt be raised in incorruption ; thou art sown 
in dishonour, thou shalt be raised in glory ; thou art soiun in 
tueakness, but shalt be raised in power, i Cor, xv. 42,43- 

XXXVI —In this life, in this death of the body, Lord, I 
see there are no degrees, though differences of time. The man 
that died yesterday is as truly dead, as Abel, the first man that 
died in the world; and Methuselah, that lived nine hundred 
sixty-nine years, did not more truly hve, than the child that did 
but salute and leave the world. But in the life to come, and the 
second death, there are degrees: degrees of blessedness to the 
glorified ; degrees of torments to the damned ; the least whereof 
is unspeakable, unconceivable. O thou, that art the Lord of life 
and death, keep my soul from those steps that go down to the 
chambers of death, and once set it — for higher I dare not sue to 
go — but over the threshold of glory and blessedness. 

XXXVII. — Lord my God, I am as very a pilgrim as ever 
walked upon thy earth : why should I look to be in any better 
condition than my neighbours, than my forefathers ? Even the 
best of them, that were most fixed upon their inheritance, were 
no other than strangers at home : it was not in the power of the 
world to naturahze them, much less to make them enrol them- 
selves free denizens here below : they knew their country, which 
they sought, was above ; so infinitely rich and pleasant, that 
these earthly regions, which they must pass through, are, in com- 
parison, worthy of nothing but contempt, Heb. xi. 13,14, 15. My 
condition is no other than theirs : I wander here in a strange 
country ; what wonder is it if I meet with foreigners'" fare, hard 
usage and neglect ! Why do I intermeddle with the affairs of a 
nation that is not mine ? why do I clog myself in my way with 
the base and heavy lumber of the world ? why are not my 
affections homev-^ard ? why do I not long to see and enjoy my 
Father^s house? 0, my God, thou that hast put me into the 
state of a pilgrim give me a pilgrim's heart ; set me off from this 
wretched world wherein I am ; let me hate to think of dwelling 
here ; let it be my only care how to pass through this miserable 
wilderness to the promised land of a blessed eternity. 

XXXVIII. — One talent at the least, Lord, hast thou put into 
my hand ; and that sum is great to him that is not worth a dram : 
but, alas ! what have I done with it ? I confess I have not hid 



16 The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 

it in a napkin, but have been laying it out to some poor advan- 
tage; yet surely the gain in so unanswerable, that I am afraid of an 
audit. I see none of the approved servants in the Gospel brought 
in an increase of less value than the receipt, Luke xix, 16 — 19 : 
I fear I shall come short of the sum. thou, who justly boldest 
thyself wronged with the style of an austere Master^ vouchsafe 
to accept of my so mean improvement ; and thou, who valuedst 
the poor widow's mites above the rich gifts cast into thy treasury, 
be pleased to allow of those few pounds that my weak endeavours 
could raise from thy stock ; and mercifully reward thy servant, 
not according to his success, but according to his true intentions 
of glorifying thee. 

XXXIX. — What a word is this, which I hear from thee, O 
Saviour, Behold, I stand at the door and knock ! Thou, which 
art the Lord of life, God blessed for ever, to stand and knock at 
the door of a sinful heart ! what a praise is this of thy mercy 
and longsuffering ! what a shame to our dull neglect and grace- 
less ingratitude ! For a David to say, / waited patiently upon 
the Lord, Psalm xl. 1 ; Tridy my soul luaited upon God, Psalm 
Ixii. 1 ; it is but meet and comely; for it is no other than the duty 
of the greatest monarchs on earth, yea, of the highest angels in 
heaven, to attend their Maker : but for thee, the great God of 
heaven, to wait at the door of us sinful dust and ashes, what a 
condescension is this ! what a longanimity ! It were our happi- 
ness, Lord, if, upon our greatest suit and importunity, we might 
have the favour to entertain thee into our hearts ; but that thou 
shouldest importune us to admit thee, and shouldest wait at the 
posts of our doors till thy head be Jilled with deiv, and thy locks 
with the drops of the night, (Cant. v. 2.) it is such a mercy, as 
there is not room enouofh in our souls to wonder at. In the 
mean time, what shall I say to our wretched unthankfulness and 
impious negligence? Thou hast graciously invited us to thee, and 
hast said, K7iock and it shall he opened; and yet thou continuest 
knocking at our doors, and we open not ; willingly delaying to 
let in our happiness. We know how easy it were for thee to 
break open the brazen doors of our breasts, and to come in ; but 
the kingdom of heaven suffers not violence from thee, though it 
should suffer it from us. Thou wilt do all thy works in a sweet 
and gracious way, as one who will not force, but win love. 
Lord, I cannot open unloss thou, that knockest for entrance, 
wilt be pleased to enable me with strength to turn the key, and 
to unbolt this unwieldy bar of my soul. do thou make way 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 17 

for thyself, by the strong motions of thy blessed Spirit, into the 
inmost rooms of my heart ; and do thou powerfully incline me to 
mine own happiness : else thou shalt be ever excluded, and I shall 
be ever miserable. 

XL. — In what pangs couldst thou be, Asaph, that so woful 
a word should fall from thee, Nath God forgotten to be gracious.^ 
Psalm Ixxvii. 9. Surely the temptation went so high, that the 
next step had been blasphemy. Had not that good God, whom 
thy bold weakness questions for forgetfulness, in great mercy 
remembered thee, and brought thee speedily to remember thyself 
and him, that which thou confessest to have been infirmity had 
proved a sinful despair. I dare say for thee, that word washed 
thy cheeks with many a tear, and was worthy of more; for, 
God, what can be so dear to thee as the glory of thy mercy? 
There is none of thy blessed attributes which thou desirest to set 
forth so much unto tlie sons of men, and so much abhorrest to be 
disparaged by our detraction, as thy mercy. Thou canst, Lord, 
forget thy displeasure against thy people ; thou canst forget our 
iniquities, and cast our sins out of thy remembrance, Micah vii. 
18,19; ^^^t t^^o^ canst no more forget to be gracious than thou 
canst cease to be thyself. O ray God, I sin against thy justice 
hourly, and thy mercy interposes for my remission ; but keep 
me from sinning against thy mercy. What plea can I hope for, 
when I have made my advocate mine enemy ? 

XLL — How happy, Lord, is the man that hath thee for his 
God ! He can want nothing that is good ; he can be hurt by 
nothing that is evil : his sins are pardoned ; his good endeavours 
are accepted ; his crosses are sanctified ; his prayers are heard : 
all that he hath are blessings ; all that he suffers are advantages : 
his life is holy ; his death comfortable ; his estate after death 
glorious. that I could feel thee to be my God, that I could 
enjoy an heavenly communion with thee ! in vain should earth or 
hell labour to make me other than blessed. 

XLH. — How just a motion is this of thine, O thou sweet singer 
of Israel, love the Lord, all ye his saints! Psalm xxxi. 23. 
Surely they can be no saints that love not such a Lord. Had he 
never been good to them, yet that infinite goodness which is in 
himself would have commanded love from saints. Yet, how could 
they have been saints if he had wholly kept his goodness to him- 
self? In that then he hath made them saints, he hath communi- 
cated his goodness to them, and challengeth all love from them ; 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. C 



18 Tlie Breathings of the Devout Soul. 

and being made such, how infinitely hath he obhged them with 
all kinds of mercies ! How can ye choose, ye saints, but love 
the Lord ? "What have ye, what are ye, what can ye be, but from 
his mere bounty ! They are slight favours that he hath done 
you for the world ; in these, his very enemies share with you : 
how transcendent are his spiritual obligations ! Hath he not 
given you his angels for your attendants ; himself for your pro- 
tector ; his Son out of his bosom for your Redeemer ; his Spirit 
for your Comforter ; his heaven for your inheritance ? If gifts 
can attract love, my God, who can have any interest in my 
heart but thy blessed self, that hast been so infinitely munificent 
to ray soul ? Take it to thee, thou that hast made and bought it ; 
enamour it thoroughly of thy goodness : make me sick of love ; 
yea, let me die for love of thee, who hast loved me unto death, 
that I may fully enjoy the perfection of thy love in the height of 
thy glory. 

XLHI. — Lord, how have T seen men miscarried into those sins, 
the premonition whereof they would have thought incredible, and 
their yieldance thereto impossible ! How many Hazaels hath our 
very age yielded, that if a prophet should have foretold their 
acts, would have said, Is thy servant a dog, that he should do 
these great things? 2 Kings viii. 13. my God, why do not I 
suspect myself? what hold have I of myself more than these 
other miserable examples of human frailty? Lord God, if thou 
take off thy hand from me, what wickedness shall escape me ? I 
know I cannot want a tempter ; and that tempter cannot want 
either power, or malice, or vigilance, or skill, or baits, or oppor- 
tunities ; and for myself, I find too well that of myself I have no 
strength to resist any of his temptations. 0, for thy mercy^s 
sake, uphold thou me with thy mighty hand ; stand close to me 
in all assaults ; show thyself strong in my weakness : Kee]) back 
thy servant from j^resimiptuous sins ; let them not have dominion 
over me : then, only, shall I be iipright, and shall be innocent 
from the great transgression, Psalm xix. 1 3. 

XLIV. — It is thy title, Lord, and only thine, that thou 
givest songs in the night. Job xxxv. 10. The night is a sad and 
dolorous season, as the Ught, contrarily, is the image of cheer- 
fulness, Eccles. xi. 7 : like as it is in bodily pains and aches, that 
tliey are still worst towards night, so it is in the cares and griefs 
of mind ; then they assault us most, when they are helped on by 
the advantage of an uncomfortable darkness. Many men can 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 19 

give themselves songs in the day of their prosperity, who can 
but howl in the night of their affliction : but for a Paul and Silas 
to sing in their prison at midnight, Acts xvi. 25 ; for an Asaph 
to call to remembrance his song in the night, Psalm Ixxvii. 6 ; this 
comes only from that Spirit of thine whose peculiar style is the 
Comforter. And surely, as music sounds best in the night, so 
those heavenly notes of praise which we sing to thee our God in 
the gloomy darkness of our adversity cannot but be most pleasing 
in thine ears. Thine apostle bids us, which is our ordinary wont, 
when we are inerry to sing ; when affiicted^ to pray : but if when 
we are afflicted we can sing, as also when we are merriest we can 
pray, that ditty must needs be so much more acceptable to thee, 
as it is a more powerful effect of the joy of thy Holy Ghost. O 
m}^ God, I am conscious of my own infirmity; I know I am 
naturally subject to a dull and heavy dumpishness, under whatso- 
ever affliction. Thou, that art the God of all comfort, remedy 
this heartless disposition in me ; pull this lead out of my bosom ; 
make me not patient only, but cheerful, under my trials ; fill thou 
my heart with joy and my mouth with songs in the night of my 
tribulation. 

XLV. — It is a true word, Lord, that thy seer said of thee 
long ago, The Lord seeth not as man seeth, 1 Sam. xvi. 7. Man 
sees the face ; thou seest the heart : man sees things as they 
seem ; thou seest them as they are : many things are hid from 
the eyes of men ; all things lie open and displayed before thee. 
AVhat a madness then were it in me to come disguised into thy 
presence, and to seek to hide my counsels from thine all-seeing 
eyes ! I must be content, Lord, to be deluded here by fair 
appearances ; for I may not offer to look into the bosoms of men, 
which thou hast reserved for thyself: it is only the outside that 
I can judge by. Yea, O God, if I shall cast my eyes inward, 
and look into my own breast, even there I find myself baffled at 
home ; The heart of man is deceitfid above all things : ivho can 
know it ? None but those piercing eyes of thine can discover all 
the windings and turnings of that intricate piece. What would 
it avail me, Lord, to mock the eyes of all the world with a 
semblance of holiness, whilst thou shouldest see me false and 
filthy ? Should I be censured by a world of men when I am 
secretly allowed by thee, I could contemn it, yea, glory in their 
unjust reproach ; but if thine eye shall note me guilty, to what 
purpose is all the applause of men? thou, that art the God of 

c 2 



HO The Breathings of the Devoid Soul. 

truth, do thou open and dissect this close heart of mine ; search 
every fibre that is in or about it ; and if thou findest any ill blood 
there, let it out; and if thou findest any hollowness, fill it up ; and 
so work upon it, that it may be approved of thee that madest it : 
as for men, it shall be alike to me whether they spend their breath 
or save it. 

XLVI. — Lord God, what a world of treasure hast thou hid in 
the bowels of the earth, which no eye of man ever did, or shall, 
or can see ! what goodly plants hast thou brought forth of 
the earth in wild, unknown regions, which no man ever belield ! 
what great wits hast thou shut up in a wilhng obscurity, which 
the world never takes notice of ! In all which, thou showest that 
it is not only the use and benefit of man which thou regardest, in 
the ffreat varietv of thy creation, and acts of administration of 
the world, but thine own glory, and the fulfilling of thine own 
good pleasure ; and if only the angels of heaven be witnesses of 
th}'- great works, thou canst not want a due celebration of thy 
praise. It is just with thee, God, that thou shouldest regard 
only thy blessed self, in all that thou doest or hast done ; for all 
is thine, and thou art all. that I could sincerely make thee 
the perfect scope of all my thoughts, of all my actions ; that so 
we may both meet in one and the same happy end, thy glory in 
mv eternal blessedness. 

XLVII. — Indeed, Lord, as thou sayest, the night cometh, when 
no man can work. What can we do when the light is shut in, 
but shut our eyes and sleep ? When our senses are tied up, and 
our limbs laid to rest, what can we do, but vield ourselves to a 
necessary repose ? my God, I perceive my night hastening on 
apace ; my sun draws low, the shadows lengthen, vapours rise, 
and the air begins to darken. Let me bestir myself for the time ; 
let me lose none of my few hours ; let me work hard a while, be- 
cause I shall soon rest everlastingly. 

XLVI II. — Thou seest. Lord, how apt I am to contemn this 
body of mine. Surely, when I look back upon the stuff whereof 
it is made, no better than that I tread upon ; and see the loath- 
someness of all kinds that comes from it ; and feel the pain that it 
ofttimes puts me to ; and consider whither it is going ; and how- 
noisome it is, above all other creatures, upon the dissolution ; I 
have much ado to hold good terms with so unequal a partner. 
But, on the other side, when I look up to thy hand, and see how 
fearfully and wonderfully thou hast made it ; what infinite cost 



The Breathings of the Devout Soul. 21 

thou hast bestowed upon it, hi that thou hast not thought thine 
own blood too dear to redeem it; that thou liast so far honoured 
it, as to make it the temple of thy Holy Ghost, and to admit it 
into a blessed communion with thyself ; and hast decreed to do 
so great things for it hereafter, even to clothe it with immortality, 
and to make it like unto thy glorious body ; T can bless thee for 
so happy a mate, and with patience digest all these necessary 
infirmities : and now I look upon this flesh, not as it is, withered 
and wrinkled, but as it will bo, shining and glorified. Lord, 
how vile soever this clay is in itself, yet make me, in thine interest 
and my hopes, so enamoured of it, as if I did already find it made 
celestial. that my faith could prevent my change, and anticipate 
my ensuing glory ! 

XLIX. — Lord, what a dreadful favour was that which thou 
showedst to thy prophet Elijah, to send a fiery chariot for him, to 
convey him up to heaven ! I should have thought that the sight 
of so terrible a carriage should have fetched away his soul before- 
hand, and have left the body grovelling on the earth ; but that 
good Spirit of thine, which had foresignified that fiery rapture, 
had doubtless forearmed thy servant with an answerable resolution 
to expect and undergo it. Either he knew that chariot, however 
fearful in the appearance, was only glorious, and not penal ; or 
else he cheerfully resolved, that such a momentary pain in the 
change would be followed with an eternity of happiness. 
God, we are not worthy to know whereto thou hast reserved us. 
Perhaps thou hast appointed us to be in the number of those 
whom thou shalt find alive at thy second coming ; and then, the 
case will be ours ; we shall pass through fire to our immortality: 
or if thou hast ordained us to a speedier despatch, perhaps thou 
hast decreed that our way to thee shall be through a fiery trial. 
God, whatever course thou, in thy holy wisdom, hast deter- 
mined for the fetching up my soul from this vale of misery and 
tears, prepare me thoroughly for it : and do thou work my heart 
to so lively a faith in thee, that all the terrors of my death may 
be swallowed up in an assured expectation of my speedy glory ; 
and that my last groans shall be immediately seconded with eternal 
hallelujahs in the glorious choir of thy saints and angels in heaven. 
Amen. Amen. 



SUSUERIUM CUM DEO. 

SOLILOQUIES: 

OB, 

HOLY SELF-CONFERENCES OF THE DEVOUT SOUL, 

UPON SUNDRY CHOICE OCCASIONS; 

WITH HUMBLE ADDRESSES 

TO THE 

THRONE OF GRACE. 



BY JOS. HALL, B. NORWICH. 



The Authors Supplicatory Dedication. 

To thee only, O my God, who hast put these holy thoughts into my soul, 
do I most humbly desire to dedicate both myself and them ; earnestly be- 
seeching thee graciously to accept of both ; and that thou wouldest be pleased 
to accompany and follow these my weak practical Devotions with a sensible 
blessing in every reader. Let these good Meditations not rest in the eye, but 
descend into the bosom of the perusers ; and effectually work in their hearts 
that warmth of pious affections which I have here presumed to exemplify in 
mine : to the glory of thy great name, and our mutual comfort, in the day 
of the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus. Amen. 



[ 23 ] 
The Heads of the several Subjects. 



The best prospect, p. ■24. 

The happy parting, p. 24. 

Heavenly conversation, p. 25. 

Love unchangeable, p. 26. 

The happiest object, p. 27. 

Unchangeable duration, p. 27. 

Trust upon trial, p. 28. 

Angelical familiarity, p. 29. 

The unanswerable Christian, p. 30. 

Hellish hostility, p. 31. 

False joy, p. 31. 

Ti'ue light, p. 32. 

Bosom-discouse, p. 33. 

The insensible fetters, p. 34. 

Satan's prevalence, p, 34. 

Leisurely growth, p. 35. 

Allowable variety, p. 36. 

Misconstructions of holiness, p. 37. 

Two heavens in one, p. 39. 

The stock employed, p. 39. 

Love of life, p. 40. 

Equal distribution, p. 40. 
The body's subjection, p. 42. 

The ground of unproficiency, p. 42. 

The sure refuge, p. 43. 

The light burden, p. 44. 
Joy intermitted, p. 44. 

Universal interest, p.45. 
The spiritual bedlam, p. 46. 
The difference of actions, p. 50. 
The necessity of labour, p. 51. 
Acquaintance with heaven, p. 51 . 
The all-suificient knowledge, p. 52. 
Poor greatness, p. 53. 
Acceptation of desires, p. 54. 
Heavenly joys, p. 55. 
Mixed contentments, p. 55. 
True wealth, p. 56. 
False light, p. 5 7. 
The haste of desire, p. 57. 
Death's remembrancers, p. 58. 



Faith's victory, p. 59. 
The unfailing friend, p. 59. 
Quiet humility, p. 60. 
Sure mercies, p. 60. 
Dangerous prosperity, p. 61, 
Cheerful obedience, p. 62. 
Heavenly accordance, p. 6^. 
Divine bounty, p. 63. 
Sweet use of power, p. 64. 
The power of conscience, p. 65. 
Proud poverty, p. (56, 
The happiest society, p. 67. 
Honey from the rock, p. 67 
Sure earnest, p. 68. 
Heavenly manna, p. 69. 
The hearts treasure, p. 70. 
The narrow way, p. 7 1 . 
God's various proceedings, p. 72. 
The waking guardian, p. 73. 
The sting of guiltiness, p. 74. 
Beneficial want, p. 75. 
Interchange of conditions, p. 76. 
The rule of devotion, p. 77. 
Hell's triumph, p. 78. 
Dumb homage, p. 78. 
Indifferency of events, p. 79. 
The transcendent love, p. 80. 
Choice of seasons, p. 81. 
The happy return home, p. 82. 
The confinements of age, p. 82. 
Sin without sense, p. 83. 
The extremes of devotion, p. 84. 
The sick man's vows, p. 85. 
The suggestions of a false heart, p. 86. 
Sacred melody, p. 87. 
Blemishes of the holy function, p. 88. 
The blessed reward, p. 89. 
Presages of judgment, p. 91. 
Unwearied motion, and rest eternal, p. 
92. 



24 [Soliloquy I- 

SELF-CONFERENCES. 



Soliloquy I. — The best Prospect. 
my God, I shall not be worthy of my eyes, if I think I can 
employ them better than in looking up to thy heaven; and I shall 
not be worthy to look up to heaven, if I suffer my eyes to rest 
there, and not look through heaven at thee, the almighty Maker 
and Ruler of it, who dwellest there in all glory and majesty ; and 
if seeing thee I do not always adore tliee, and find my soul taken 
up with awful and admiring thoughts concerning thee. I see 
many eyes have looked curiously upon that glorious frame, else 
they could not have made so punctual observation of the fire and 
motion of those goodly globes of light which thou hast placed 
there, as to foretell all their conjunctions and oppositions for 
many hundred yeai's before : but, while they look at the motions, 
let me look at the Mover, wondering, not without ravishment of 
spirit, at that infinite power and wisdom which keeps up those 
numberless and immense bodies in so perfect a regularity, that 
they all keep their just stations and times, without the least vary- 
ing from the course which thou settest them in their first crea- 
tion ; so while their observation makes them the wiser, mine shall 
make me the holier. Much variety of objects hast thou given us 
here below, which do commonly take up our eyes ; but it shall be 
my fault, if all those do not rather lead my thoughts to thee, 
than withdraw them from thee, since thy power and majesty is 
clearly conspicuous in them all. God, while I have eyes, let 
me never but see thee in all things, let me never but enjoy thee : 
let me see thee as thou mayest be seen, by the eye of faith, till 
I may see, as I am seen, hereafter, in glory : let me see thee as 
through a glass darkly here on earth, till I may come to see thee 
face to face in heaven, i Cor. xiii, 12. 

II. — The happy Parting. 
I have lived divers years longer than holy David did, yet I 
can truly say with him, if that psalm were his which hath the 
title of Moses, We have brought our years to an end, as it were 
a tale that is told^, Psalm xc. 9. Methinks, my soul, it is 
but yesterday since we met, and now we are upon parting ; 
neither shall we, I hope, be unwilling to take leave ; for what 

" Euthym. in Prtefat. Psalmorimi. 



—III.] Self- Conferences. 25 

advantage can it be to us to hold out longer together ? One piece 
of rae cannot but o-row more infirm with use and time ; and there- 
upon must follow a decay of all faculties and operations. Where 
the tools are grown bad and dull, what work can be exquisite 't 
Thou seest it then necessary, and inevitable, that we must yield 
to age, and grow worse with continuance. And what privilege 
can mere time give us in our duration? We see the basest of 
stones last longer than the durablest plants ; and we see trees 
hold out longer than any sensitive creatures ; and divers of those 
sensitive creatures outlast man, the lord of them all. Neither are 
any of these held more excellent, because they wear out more 
hours. We know Enoch Avas more happy, that was fetched away 
at three hundred sixty- five years, than Methuselah, at nine hun- 
dred sixty and nine. Gen. v. 23, 24, 27. Dilierence of age doth 
nothing but pull down a side, where there are not supphes of 
increasing abilities. Should we continue our partnership many 
years longer, could we hope for more health and strength of 
body, more vigour of understanding and judgment, more heat of 
good affections ? And can we doubt that it will be elsewhere 
better with us ? Do we not know what abides for us above ? Are 
we not assured, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved^ we have a building of God, an house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens? 2 Cor. v. i. Why, therefore, 
why should ye be loath to part upon fair terms 1 thou, my 
soul, to the possession of that happy mansion, which thy dear 
Saviour hath from eternity prepared for thee in his Father's 
house ; and thou, my body, to that quiet repository of thy 
grave, till ye both shall happily meet in the blessed resurrection 
of the just, never, never to be severed. 

III. — Heavenly Conversation. 

It matters not a httle with whom we hold our famihar con- 
versation ; for, commonly, we are transformed into the dispo- 
sitions and manners of those whose company we frequent : we 
daily see those who, by haunting the society of drunkards and 
debauched persons, have, from civil and orderly men, grown into 
extremity of lewdness ; and, on the contrary, those who have 
consorted themselves with the holy and virtuous, have attained 
to a gracious participation of their sanctity. Why shouldest thou 
not then, my soul, by a continual conversation with God and 
his angels, impro\ e to an heavenly disposition ? Thou canst not. 



26 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy IV — 

while thou art here, but have somewhat to do with the world : 
that will necessarily intrude into thy presence, and force u^5on 
thee businesses unavoidable; and thy secular friends may well 
look to have some share in thy sociable entertainments. But these 
are but goers and comers, easily and willingly dismissed, after 
some kind interlocutions : the company that must stick by thee is 
spiritual ; which shall never leave thee, if thou have the grace to 
apply thyself to them upon all occasions. Thou mayest hold fair 
correspondence with all other, not offensive companions ; but thy 
entireness must be only with these. Let those other be never so 
faithful, yet they are uncertain ; be their will never so good, yet 
their power is limited : these are never but at hand ; never but 
able and willing to make and keep thee happy. O my God, thou 
seest how subject I am to distractions : hold me close to thee : 
let me enter into the same company here in my pilgrimage which 
I shall for ever enjoy hereafter in my home. 

IV. — Love-unchangeahle. 
Our younger years are wont to be delighted with variety, 
and to be much affected to a change, although to the worse : the 
child is better pleased with his new coat, though the old be far 
handsomer ; whereas age and experience fixeth our desires, and 
teacheth us to set the greatest value upon those good things 
wherewith we have been longest acquainted. Yea, it is the gene- 
ral disposition of nature to be cloyed with continued blessings; 
and, upon long fruition, to complain of that good which we fiz*st 
commended for pleasing and beneficial. What could relish better 
with the Israelites the first morning than the angels' food which 
fell down from heaven every day about their camp ? the taste 
whereof was like to Avafers made with honey, Exod. xvi. 13; 
Deut. viii. 3 ; Exod. xvi. 31. If we stay but a while, we shall, ere 
many years, hear them calling for the onions and garlick of 
Egypt ; and crying out, Now our soul is dried away : there is 
nothing hut this manna before our eyes, Numb. xi. 6. Our 
wanton appetite is apt to be weary of the best blessings, both of 
earth and heaven, and to nauseate with store : neither is any 
thing more tedious to us than the enjoined repetition of a daily- 
tasked devotion. But, contrarily, grace endears all blessings to 
us by their continuance ; and heightens our affections, where they 
arc rightly placed, by the length of the time of their enjoying. 
O God, it is thy mercy, that thou hast vouchsafed to allow mc an 



—VI.] Self-Conferences. 27 

early interest in thee, even from my tender years : the more and 
longer I have known thee, the more cause have I still found to 
love thee and adore thee. Thou art ever one and unchangeable : 
0, make thou my heart so. Devote thou me wholly unto thee ; 
and by how much cooler my old age is in all other affections, 
inflame it so much the more in my love to thee. 

V. — The happiest Object. 
If we could attain to settle in our thoughts a right apprehen- 
sion of the majesty of God, it would put us into the comfortable 
exercise of all the affections that belong to the soul. For, surely, 
if we could conceive aright of his omnipotent power, and trans- 
cending glory, and incomprehensible infiniteness, we could not but 
tremble before him, and be always taken up with an adoring fear 
of him ; and if we could apprehend his infinite goodness both in 
himself and to mankind, we could not but be ravished with a fer- 
vent love to him, and should think ourselves happy that we might 
be allowed to love such a God ; and if we could conceive of that 
absolute beauty of his holiness and blissful presence, we could 
not but be inflamed with a longing desire to enjoy such a God ; 
and if we could apprehend all these, we could not be but both 
transported with an unspeakable joy, that we have a sure interest 
in a God so holy, so good, so almighty, so glorious ; and stricken 
with an unexpressible grief that we should either offend him, or 
suffer ourselves to want but for a moment the feeling presence of 
that all-sufficient and all-comprehending Majesty. On the con- 
trary, those men begin at the wrong end who go about to draw 
their affections to God first, and then after seek to have their 
minds enlightened with right conceits of his essence and attri- 
butes ; who, meeting with those occurrent temptations which 
mainly cross them in their desires and affections, are straight set 
oft' from prosecuting their good motions, and are as new to seek 
of a God as if they had never bent their thoughts towards heaven. 

God, let it be the main care of my hfe to know thee, and whom 
thou hast sent, Jesus Christ, thy Son, my Saviour : I cannot, 
through thy mercy, fail of an heavenly disposition of soul while 

1 am here, and of a life of eternal glory with thee hereafter. 

VI. — Unchangeable Duration. 
In the first minute wherein we live, we enter upon an eternity 
of being : and though at the first, through the want of the excr- 



28 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy VII — 

cise of reason, we cannot know it ; and afterwards, through our 
inconsideration and the bewitching businesses of time, we do not 
seriously lay it to heart, we are in a state of everlastingncss. 
There must, upon the necessity of our mortahty, be a change of 
our condition; but, with a perpetuity of our being, the body 
must undergo a temporary dissolution, and the soul a remove 
either to bliss or torment ; but both of them, upon their meeting, 
shall continue in an unchangeable duration for ever and ever. 
And if we are wont to slight transitory and vanishing commo- 
dities, by reason of their momentary continuance, and to make 
most account of things durable, what care and great thoughts 
ought I to bestow upon myself, who shall outlast the present 
world ! and how ought I to frame my life, so as it may fall upon 
an eternity infinitely happy and glorious ! God, do thou 
set off my heart from all these earthly vanities, and fix it above 
with thee. As there shall be no end of my being, so let there be 
no change of my affections. Let them beforehand take posses- 
sion of that heaven of thine whereto I am aspiring. Let nothing 
but this clay of mine be left remaining upon this earth whereinto 
it is mouldering. Let my spiritual part be ever with thee, whence 
it came, and enter upon that bliss which knows neither change 
nor end. 

VIL — Trust upon Trial. 
What a providence there is over all the creatures in the world, 
which both produceth them to their being, and overrules and 
carries them on, to and in their dissolution, without their know- 
ledge or intended cooperation : but for those whom God hath 
endued with the faculty of ratiocination, how easy is it to observe 
the course of the divine proceedings with them! how that all-wise 
God contrives their affairs and events, quite beyond and above 
the power of their weak projections ; how he prevents their de- 
sires; how he fetches about unexpected and improbable occur- 
rences to their hinderance or advantage : sometimes blessing 
them with success beyond all their hopes ; sometimes blasting 
their projects when their blossoms are at the fairest. Surely, if 
I look only in a dull stupidity upon the outsides of all accidents 
that befall me, and not improve my reason and faith to discern 
and acknowledge that invisible power that orders them to his 
own and their ends, I shall be little bettel* than brutish ; and if 
upon the observation of that good hand of God, sensibly leading 
mc on in all the ways of my younger and riper age, in so many 



— VIIL] Self- Conferences. 29 

feeling and apparent experiments of his gracious provisions and 
protections, I shall not have learned to trust him with the small 
remainder of my days, and the happy close of that life which he 
hath so long and mercifully preserved, the favours of a bountiful 
God shall have been cast away upon a barren and unthankful 
heart. God, I am such as thou hast made me : make up thy 
good work, in me, and keep me that I do not mar myself with 
my wretched unbelief. I have tried thee to the full. that 
I could cast myself wholly upon thee, and trust thee, both with 
my body and soul, for my safe passage to that blessed home, and 
for the perfect accomplishment of my glory in thine ! 

VI II. — Angelical Familiarity. 
There is no reason to induce a man to think that the good 
angels are not as assiduously present with us for our good, as the 
evil angels are for our hurt, since we know that the evil spirits 
cannot be more full of malice to work our harm, than the blessed 
angels are full of charity and well-wishing to mankind ; and the 
evil are only let loose to tempt us by a permission of the Almighty, 
whereas the good are by a gracious delegation from God en- 
charged with our custody, Heb. i. 14. Now that the evil spirits 
are ever at hand, ready upon all occasions to present their ser- 
vice to us for our furtherance to mischief, appears too plainly in 
their continual temptations which they inject into our thoughts ; 
in their real and speedy operations with the spells and charms of 
their wicked clients, which are no less eifectually answered by 
them immediately upon their practice, than natural causes are by 
their ordinary and regular productions. It must needs follow, 
therefore, that the good angels are as close to us and as insepa- 
rable from us : and though we see neither, yet he that hath 
spiritual eyes perceives them both, and is accordingly aifected to 
their presence. If, then, wicked men stick not to go so far as to 
endanger and draw on their own damnation by familiarly con- 
versing with malignant spirits ; why should not I, for the unspeak- 
able advantage of my soul, affect an awful familiar conversation 
with those blessed angels which I know to be with me? The 
language of spirits are thoughts : why do not I entertain them in 
my secret cogitations, and hold an holy discourse with them in 
mental allocutions ; and so carry myself, as that I may ever hold 
fair correspondence with those invisible companions, and may ex- 
pect from them all gracious offices, of holy motions, careful pro- 



30 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy IX — 

tection, and at last, an happy conveyance to my glory ? O my 
soul, thou art a spirit, as they are : do thou ever see them, as 
they see thee ; and so speak to them as they speak to thee ; and 
bless thy God for their presence and tuition ; and take heed of 
doing aught that may cause those heavenly guardians to turn 
away their faces from thee as ashamed of their charge. 

IX. — Tlie unansiverable Christian. 
It is no small grief to any good heart that loves the Lord Jesus 
in sincerity, to see how utterly unanswerable the greater sort of 
men that bear the name of Christ are to the example and pre- 
cepts of that Christ whose name they bear. He was humble and 
meek; they, proud and insolent: he bade us love oar enemies; 
they hardly can love their friends : he prayed for his persecutors ; 
they curse : he, that had the command of all, cared not to possess 
any thing ; they, not having right to much, would possess all : he 
bade us give our coat also to him that takes our cloak ; they take 
both coat and cloak from him that hath it : he bade us turn our 
cheek for the other blow ; they will be sure to give two blows for 
one : he paid obedience to a foster-father and tribute to Caesar ; 
they despise government : his trade was only doing good, spending 
the night in praying, the day in preaching and healing ; they de- 
bauch their time, revelling away the night, and sleeping away or 
mispending the day : he forbade oaths ; they not only swear and 
forswear, but blaspheme too : he bade us make friends of the 
mammon of unrighteousness ; they make mammon their god : he 
bade us take up his cross ; they impose their own : he bade us 
lay up our treasure in heaven ; they place their heaven in earth : 
he bids us give to them that ask ; they take violently from the 
owners : he bade us return good for evil ; they, for good, return 
evil : he charged his disciples to love one another ; they nourish 
malice and rancour against their brethren : he left peace for a 
legacy to his followers ; they are apt to set the world on fire : his 
business was to save; theirs, to destroy. God, let rivers of 
waters run down mine eyes, because they do no better keep the 
law of thy gospel, Psalm cxix. 136. Give grace to all that are 
called by thy name to walk Avorthy of that high profession whereto 
they are called ; and keep me, thy unworthy servant, that I may 
never deviate from that blessed pattern which thou hast set before 
me. let me never shame that great name that is put upon me. 
Let me, in all things, approve myself a Christian in earnest, and 



— XL] Self-Conferences. 31 

so conform myself to thee, in all thy examples and commands, 
that it may be no dishonour to thee to own me for thine. 

X. — Hellish Hostility. 

I cannot but observe how universal it is, in all kinds, for one 
creature to prey upon another : the greater fishes devour the 
less : the birds of rapine feed upon the smaller fowls : the raven- 
ous wild beasts sustain themselves with the flesh of the weaker 
and tamer cattle : the dog pursues the hare ; the cat, the mouse : 
yea, the very mole under the earth hunts for the worm, and the 
spider in our window for the fly. Whether it pleased God to 
ordain this antipathy in nature, or whether man's sin brought 
this enmity upon the creature, I inquire not : this I am sure of, 
that both God hath given unto man, the lord of this inferior 
world, leave and power to prey upon all these his fellow creatures, 
and to make his use of them both for his necessity and lawful 
pleasure ; and that the god of this world is only he that hath 
stirred up men to prey upon one another : some, to eat their flesh, 
as the savage Indians ; others, to destroy their lives, estates, good 
names ; this proceeds only from him that is a murderer from the 
beginning. O my soul, do thou mourn in secret, to see the great 
enemy of mankind so wofully prevalent as to make the earth so 
bloody a shambles to the sons of men, and to see Christians so 
outrageously cruel to their own flesh. And, thou that art the 
Lord of hosts and the God of peace, restrain thou the violent fury of 
those which are called by thy name ; and compose these unhappy 
quarrels amongst them that should be brethren. Let me, if it may 
stand with thy blessed will, once again see peace smile over the 
earth, before I come to see thy face in glory. 

XL — False Joy. 
Amongst these public blusters of the world, 1 find many men 
that secretly applaud themselves in the conceit of an happy peace 
which they find in their bosom ; Avhere all is calm and quiet, no 
distemper of passions, no fear of evil, no sting of remorse, no dis- 
turbance of doubts, but all smoothness of brow, and all tranquil- 
lity of mind ; whose course of life, yet without any great inquiry, 
hath appeared to be not over strict and regular. I hear them 
boast of their condition, without any envy of their happiness, as 
one that had rather hear them complain of their inward unquiet- 
ness than brag of their peace. Give me a man, that, after many 



32 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy XII — 

secret bickerings and hard conflicts in his breast, upon a serious 
penitence and sense of reconciliation with his God, hath attained 
to a quiet heart, walking conscionably and close with that Majesty 
Avith whom he is atoned ; I shall bless and emulate him as a meet 
subject of true joy. For, spiritually, there is never a perfect calm 
but after a tempest : the wind and earthquake and fire make 
way for the soft voice, i Kings xix. But I pity the flatteries and 
self-applauses of a careless and impenitent heart ; this jollity hath 
in it much danger, and, without some change, death. Saviour, 
I know thou earnest to send fire on the earth ; yea, fire into these 
earthen bosoms, whereof the very best hath combustible matter 
enough for thee to work upon ; and what luill I, thou sayest, if 
it he already kindled ? Luke xii. 49. O blessed Jesu, my will 
agrees Avith thine : I desire nothing in tlie world more than that 
this fire of thine may flame up in my soul, and burn up those 
secret corruptions which have lien smothering within me. Set me 
at full variance with myself, that I may be at peace with thee. 

XII. — True Light. 
Thou hast taught us, O Saviour, that even the light of man 
may be darkness, and that the light endarkened causeth the 
greatest darkness. Matt. vi. 23 : neither can it be otherwise ; since 
the very obscuring of the light maketh some kind of darkness, 
the utter extinction of it must needs make the darkness absolute. 
Now what is darkness but a mere privation of light \ There is 
but a double spiritual light, the absence whereof causeth darkness. 
Thine evangelist hath justly said of thee. Thou art tlie true Light, 
that enlightenest every man that cometh into the world, John i. 9. 
Thy Psalmist hath said of thy divine oracles. Thy word is a 
lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my stejjs. Psalm cxix. 105 : 
whosoever wants both, or either of these, cannot but be in dark- 
ness ; yea, his pretended light cannot but be darkness itself. I 
see, Lord, there is much of this dark hght in the world. In 
one, I observe a kind of glowworm-hght, which in a summer's 
evening shines somewhat bright ; but he that should off"er to light 
his candle at it would be much deceived : this is justly a dark 
light, since it shines not at all by day, neither is at all communi- 
cable to another, no not to the bearer itself. In another, I see 
the light of a dark-lantern, which casts out some gleams of light, 
but only to him that bears it : even this man^s light is darkness 
also to all the world besides himself. In a third, I see a reseni- 



_XI1I.] 8elf-Conferences. 33 

blance of that raeteorical light, which appears in moorish places, 
that seems fire, but is nothing but a slimy glittering exhalation, 
causing both the wonder and error of the traveller ; leading him, 
through the impulsive motion of the air, into a ditch : and of this 
kind I find too much variety ; all of them agreeing in this, that 
they pretend visions and revelations of the Spirit even for con- 
trary projections. O Saviour, what hght soever is not derived 
from thee is no better than darkness. Thou hast sufficiently re- 
vealed thyself and thy will to us in thy word : as for any new 
lights, except it be a clearer manifestation of the old, Lord, 
give me the grace not to follow them. I find a double light to 
proceed from thee : one, which is a general hght, that enlightens 
every man that comes into the world ; the other, especial light of 
thy Spirit, illuminating the soul of every believer with a right 
apprehension of thee and heavenly things. O do thou shine 
into my soul with this heavenly light of thine ; and if this be not 
enough to make me happy, without the accession and with the 
rejection of other new lights, let me sit in perpetual darkness. 

XIII. — Bosom-Discourse. 
O Lord, if I had the skill and grace to be ever communing 
with my own heart and with thee, I should never want either 
work or company ; never have cause to complain of solitariness or 
tedious hours; for there is no time wherein there is not some 
main business to be done between thee and my soul : one while, 
finding my heart dull and stupid, I should have cause to rouse 
it up by some quickening meditation; another while, finding it 
dejected with some unexpected cross, I should be cheering it up 
with some comfortable applications: one while, finding it dis- 
tracted with some scrupulous doubts, I should be labouring to 
settle it in just resolutions; another while, perceiving it to incline 
towards idle thoughts, I should be checking it with a seasonable 
reprehension : one while, finding it faint and slack in holy duties, 
I should chide it into a more sensitive vigour ; another while, 
finding it more cheerful in the performances of devotion, I should 
encourage it with the assurance of a gracious acceptation : one 
while, I should find cause to fortify it against temptations ; an- 
other while, to erect it after a foil : one while, to conflict ; another, 
to triumph : one while to examine my condition ; another while, 
either to deplore or congratulate it : one while, I should find time 
to 'sue to thee, my God, for the supply of some want ; another 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. D 



34 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy XIV — 

while, to bless thee for favours received : one while, to bemoan my 
wretchedness ; another while, to adore thy infinite greatness : one 
while, to renew my vows ; another while, to beg pardon for my 
omissions : one while, to seek thee with tears and due humilia- 
tion ; another while, to rejoice in thy great salvation. The varie- 
ties of my ever-changing condition, while I am in this vale of 
misery, cannot want the perpetual employment of a busy soul. O 
God, let me be dumb to all the world, so as I may ever have a 
tongue for thee and my own heart. 

XIV. — The Insensible Fetters. 

What a subtle devil we have to deal with ! He will be sure to 
give the sinner line enough, so he may be sure to hold him ; he 
shall have his full scope and freedom to all honest and religious 
practices, so as, by some one secret sin, that evil spirit may have 
power over his soul, both to ensnare and retain it. He cares not 
how godly we seem, how conscionable we are in all other actions, 
so as he may still, in one dear sin, keep us fast entangled. Where- 
upon it often comes to pass, that, not only the eves of the world, 
but even our own, are too often deceived, in the judgment of our 
spiritual estate. We profess strict holiness, and give good proofs, 
upon occasion, of a tender and well-guided conscience, so as this 
glorious show wins us the reputation of rare virtue and exemplary 
piety ; yet still that wicked devil hath a tie upon our heel : there is 
some peccadillo of smothered lust, or concealed pride, or zealous 
cruelty and uncharitableness, that gives him the command of our 
souls at pleasure : and this shall no less fetch us within his power 
and mercy, than if we were locked up under a thousand chains. 
God, thou who art infinite both in wisdom and power, do thou 
enable me, not only to resist the pov/er, but to avoid the wiles of 
that cunning spirit. Let me give him no advantage by the close 
entertainment of any bosom sin. Let my hoUness and obedience 
be as universal as either thy commands or his mischievous in- 
tentions. 

XV. — Satan's Prevalence. 

How busy and prevalent Satan is in this present age, above 
all former times, appears too plainly in those universal broils and 
combustions which he hath raised all the world over; whereof no 
nation of the whole known habitable earth is at this day free : in 
the strange number and variety of sects, schisms, heresies, set on 
foot by him everywhere ; the like whereof were never heard of 



—XVI.] Belf -Conferences. 35 

in the preceding times of the Church : in the rifeness of bold and 
professed atheism : and^ most clearly, in the marvellous multitude 
of witches abounding in all parts. Heretofore, one of those clients 
of hell in a whole country was hooted at as a strange monster ; 
now, hundreds are discovered in one shire ; and, if fame deceive 
us not, in a village of fourteen houses, in the north parts, are 
found so many of this damned breed : heretofore, only some 
barbarous and wild deserts, or some rude uninhabited coasts, as 
of Lapland and Finland, &c., were thought to be haunted with 
such miscreant guests ; now the civilest and most religious parts 
are frequently pestered with them : heretofore, some silly, poor, 
and ignorant old women were thus deluded by that infernal 
impostor ; now, we have known those of both sexes which have 
professed much knowledge, holiness, devotion, drawn into this 
damnable practice. What shall we say to all these over-pregnant 
proofs of the unusually prevailing power of hell ? Certainly, 
either Satan is now let loose, according to the prediction of the 
holy evangelist in Patmos, towards the end of the world ; or, 
because he finds his time but short, he rageth thus extremely, as 
if what he must lack in time he would make up in fury. But, 
blessed God, thine infinite wisdom and omnipotence knows how 
to make a just advantage of that increased power and success 
which thou hast permitted to this great enemy of mankind. Thy 
justice is hereby magnified in thy just judgments upon the wicked ; 
and thy mercy, in the gain that hence accrues to thy chosen : for 
certainly thy true saints would not be so eminently holy if Satan 
were not so malicious. Thou, who in natural causes art wont to 
work by contraries, so as inward heat is ordinarily augmented by 
the extremity of an ambient cold, canst and wilt do so much more 
in spiritual. What thy visible Church loseth in the number of 
formal professors is abundantly made up in the vigorous graces 
of thy real saints. Still and ever do thou so order and overrule 
these busy workings of the powers of darkness, that thou mayest 
repay thine unreclaimable enemies with judgments, and heighten 
the piety, vigilancy, and zeal of thy faithful ones. 

XVI. — Leisurely Growth. 
We are all commonly impatient of leisure, and apt to over- 
hasten the fruition of those good things we afi'ect. One would 
have wealth ; but he would not be too long in getting of it ; he 
would have golden showers rain down into his lap on the sudden : 

D 2 



36 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy XVII — 

another would be wise and learned ; yet he cannot abide to stay 
for o-ray hairs, or to spend too much oil in his tedious lucubrations. 
One would be free ; but he would not wear out an apprenticeship : 
anotiier would be honourable ; but he would neither serve long 
nor hazard much. One would be holy ; but he would not wait 
too long at the doorposts of God's house, nor lose too many hours 
in the exercise of his stinted devotions : another would be happy ; 
but he would leap into heaven suddenly, not abiding to think of 
a leisurely towering up thither by a thousand degi'ees of ascent 
in the slow proficiency of grace. Whereas the great God of 
heaven, that can do all things in an instant, hath thought good 
to produce all the effects of natural agency not without a due 
succession of time. When I look into my garden, there I see 
first a small spire look out of the earth, which in some months* 
time grows into a stalk ; then, after many days' expectation, 
branches forth into some leaves ; at last, appears the hope of a 
flower, which, ripened with many suns and showers, arises to 
its perfection, and at last puts forth its seed for a succeeding 
multiplication. If I look into my orchard, I see the well- grafted 
scions yield first a tender bud : itself, after many years, is bodied 
to a soHd stock ; and, under the patience of many hard winters, 
spreads forth large arms : at last, being grown to a meet age of 
vegetation, it begins to grace the spring with some fair blossoms, 
which, falling off kindly, give way to a weak embryon of fruit : 
every day now adds something to the growth, till it attain, in 
autumn, to a full maturity. Why should I make account of any 
other course in my spiritual proceedings ? God, I shall be 
always ready to censure my slow pace in grace and holy obedi- 
ence ; and shall be ever ambitious of aspiring higher in thy 
gracious favour : but when I shall have endeavoured my utmost, 
I shall wait with humble patience upon thy bountiful hand ; as 
one that desires thankfully to acknowledge the little that I have 
received, and meekly to attend thy good pleasure for what I may 
receive. So thou bring me to heaven, take what time and keep 
what pace thou pleasest. 

XVII. — Alloivahle Variety. 

It is a great and insolent wrong in those men who shall think 

to reduce all dispositions, and forms of devotion, and usages, to 

their own; since in all these there may be much variety and 

all those different fashions may receive a gracious acceptation in 



— XVIIL] Self-Conferences. 37 

heaven. One thinks it best to hold himself to a set form of 
invocation ; another deems it far better to be left free to liis 
arbitrary and unpremeditated expressions : one pleases himself 
with this notion of that omnipotent Deity whom he implores ; 
another thinks that may be more proper and affective : one thinks 
this posture of body may be the meetest for his humble address 
to the throne of grace, or to the table of the heavenly manna ; 
another likes that better : one is for a long prayer ; another, for 
short ejaculations : one desires to raise up his spirits, with the 
prophet, by the a.id of an harmonious melody ; another holds 
them better fixed in a sad silence : one holds it best to set forth 
God's service in a solemn state and magnificence ; another ap- 
proves better of a simple and inceremonious devotion : one re- 
quires a sacred place and a peculiar habit, as best becoming God's 
public worship ; another makes no difference of either room or 
dress : one makes scruple of coming otherwise than fasting to the 
Lord's table ; another conceives it more seasonable after a love- 
feast : one thinks his Christian liberty allows him the moderate 
scope to all not unlawful recreations; another's austerity inter- 
dicts all pastimes : one judgeth this hair and that attire not lawful 
only, but comely ; another thinks he espies sin in both. O God, 
as thou hast ever showed thyself justly severe in the avenging of 
sin ; so I know thee graciously indulgent in allowing thy servants 
much latitude in the free use of all that thou hast not prohibited : 
in imitation whereof, give me an heart holily zealous to abhor 
every thing that is truly evil, and charitably affected to the 
favourable censure of all usao;es that are merely indifferent. Let 
my main care be to look to the sincerity of my soul, and to the 
sure grounds of warrant for my actions : for other circumstantial 
appurtenances, where thou art pleased to be liberal, let me not 
be straithanded. 

XVIIL — Misconstructions of Holiness. 
It is no marvel if there be nothing that undergoes more variety 
of constructions from the lookers on than hohness ; for that, being 
an inward gracious disposition of the soul conformed to God in all 
the renewed faculties thereof, lies so close in the bosom, that it 
can only be guessed at by such uncertain emanations of words 
and actions as fliow from it to the ears and eyes of others. The 
particular graces and affections of love, fear, hope, joy, godly 
sorrow, zeal, and the rest, break forth apparently in such symp- 



38 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy XVIII — 

toms and effects, as may win a certainty of belief from the be- 
holders, neither indeed are easily concealed from the view of 
others ; all these may be read in the face ; but if the heart itself 
could be seen, and that curiously dissected, yet even thus could 
not holiness be discovered. Beside the closeness, every man is apt 
to measure his judgment of holiness by a false rule of his own ; 
whereby it comes to pass that it is so commonly mistaken. One 
thinks him holy that forsakes the world, and retires into some 
wild desert, or mures up himself in an anchorite's cell : another 
judges him holy that macerates his body with fasting, that disci- 
plines his hide with whips and haircloths, that lies hard and fares 
hard ; that abstains from all that relates to flesh in his Lent and 
Embers ; that passionately hugs his crucifix, and tosses his beads, 
and duly observes his shrifts and canonical hours : now this man, 
that in their wav is in danger of canonization for a saint, is bv 
the professor of an opposite holiness decried to hell for super- 
stition and idolatry. One styles him holy who segregates himself 
from the contagious communion of formal Christians ; professing 
to serve his God in a purer way of worship ; rejecting all stinted 
forms of prayer and psalmody ; spitting at the mention of an 
hierarchy; allowing no head sacred but by the imposition of 
what we miscall laic hands ; abandoning all ceremonies of human 
institution; abiding no circumstances of divine worship but aposto- 
heal : another allows him only holy who is already a citizen of 
the new Jerusalem ; advanced to such an entireness with God, 
as that he is no less than glorified ; he hath left the Scriptures 
below him as a weak and dead letter, and is far above all whatso- 
ever ordinance, yea — which I tremble to report — above the blood 
of Christ himself: a third reputes him only holy, who, having left 
the society of all churches as too impure, stands now alone, waiting 
for some miracles from heaven to settle his resolution. Xow, 
Lord, after all these and many more weak and idle misprisions, 
upon the sure and unfailing grounds of truth, {thy word is truth,) 
I know that man to be trulv holy whose understanding is enlio-ht- 
ened with right apprehensions of thee and heavenly things ; whose 
will and aftections are rightly disposed to thee, so as his heart is 
wholly taken up with thee ; whose conversation is so altogether 
with thee, that he thinks all time lost wherein he doth not enjoy 
thee, and a sweet and heavenly communion with thee ; walking 
perpetually with thee, and labouring in all things to be approved 
ot thee. God, do thou work me up ,to this temper, and keep me 



— XX.] Self-Conferences. S9 

still in it ; and then, however I may differ in a construction of 
holiness from others that think themselves more perfect, howso- 
ever I may be censured as defective in my judgment or affections, 
yet I do not without sound and sensible comfort know, that my 
Judge is in heaven and my witness in my bosom. 

XIX. — Two Heavens in One. 
I was wont to say, " It is in vain for a man to hope for, and 
impossible for him to enjoy, a double heaven ; one below, and 
another above : since our sufferings here on earth must make 
way for our future glory :' but now I find it, in a better sense, 
very feasible for a true Christian to attain both : for, as we say, 
where the prince resides, there is the court, so, surely, where 
the supreme and infinite Majesty pleases to manifest his presence, 
there is heaven. Whereas, therefore, God exhibits himself pre- 
sent two ways, in grace and in glory ; it must follow, that the 
gracious presence of God makes an heaven here below, as his 
glorious presence makes an heaven above. Now it cannot but 
fall out, that as the lower material heaven comes far short of the 
purity of the superior regions, being frequently overcast with 
clouds, and troubled with other both watery and fiery meteors, 
so this spiritual heaven below, being many times darkened with 
sad desertions and blustered with temptations, cannot yield that 
perfection of inward peace and happiness which remains for us 
above this sphere of mutabihty ; yet affords us so much fruition 
of God, as may give us a true title and entrance into blessedness. 
I well see, God, it is no paradox to say, that thy saints reign 
with thee here on eai'th, though not for a thousand years : 
yet during the time of their sojourning here below, not in any 
secular splendour and magnificence, not in bodily pleasures and 
sensual contentments; yet in true spiritual delectation, in the 
joys of the Holy Ghost, unspeakable and full of glory. my 
God, do thou thus set my foot over the threshold of thy heaven ! 
Put thou my soul into this happy condition of an inchoate blessed- 
ness ; so shall I cheerfuly spend the remainder of my days in a 
joyful expectation of the full consummation of my glory. 

XX. — Tlie Stock employed, 

What are all excellencies without respect of their use? How 

much good ground is there in the world that is neither cultured 

nor owned ! what a world of precious metals He hid in the bowels 

of the earth, which shall never be coined ! what store of rich 



40 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy XXI — 

pearls and diamonds are hoarded up in the earth and sea, which 
shall never see the light! what delicacies of fowls and fishes do 
both elements afford, which shall never come to the dish ! How 
many great wits are there in the world which lie willingly con- 
cealed ; whether out of modesty, or idleness, or lack of a wished 
opportunity ! Improvement gives a true value to all blessings. A 
penny in the purse is worth many pounds, yea talents, in an un- 
known mine. That is our good which doth us good. O God, 
give thou me grace to put out my little stock to the public bank, 
and faithfully to employ those poor faculties thou hast given me 
to the advantage of thy name and the benefit of thy Church; 
so, besides the gain of others, my pounds shall be rewarded with 
cities. 

XXI. — Love of Life. 

We are all naturally desirous to live ; and though we prize 
life above all earthly things, yet we are ashamed to profess that 
we desire it for its own sake, but pretend some other subordinate 
reason to affect it. One would live, to finish his building or to 
clear his purchase ; another, to breed up his children, and to see 
them well matched : one would fain outlive his trial at law ; an- 
other wishes to outwear an emulous corrival : one would fain out- 
last a lease that holds him off from his long-expected possessions ; 
another would live to see the times amend, and a reestablishment 
of a public peace. Thus we, that would be glad to give skin for 
skin, and all things for life, would seem to wish life for any thing 
but itself. After all this hypocrisy, nature, above all things, 
would Hve, and makes hfe the main end of living : but grace has 
higher thoughts ; and therefore, though it holds life sweet and 
desirable, yet entertains the love of it upon more excellent, that 
is, spiritual terms. God, I have no reason to be weary of this 
life, which, through thy mercy, long acquaintance hath endeared 
to me, though sauced with some bitter disgusts of age ; but how 
unworthy shall I approve myself of so great a blessing, if now I 
do not more desire to continue it for thy sake than my own ! 

XXII. — Equal Distribution. 

It was a most idle question which the philosophers are said to 

have proposed to Barnabas, the colleague of St. Paul^ : " Why a 

small gnat should have six legs, and wings beside ; whereas the 

elephant, the greatest of beasts, hath but four legs, and no wings.'' 

a Clem. [Rom.] de [rebus] gestis B. Petri. [Paris. 1555, p. 9.] 



— XXIL] Self-Conferences. 41 

What pity it is thcat those wise masters were not of the counsel of 
the Almighty when he was pleased to give a being to his crea- 
ture ! they would surely have devised to make a winged elephant 
and a corpulent gnat; a feathered man, and a speaking beast. 
Vain fools ! they had not learned to know and adore that infinite 
Wisdom wherein all things were made. It is not for that incom- 
prehensible Majesty and Power to be accountable to wretched 
man for the reasons of his allwise and mighty creation : yet so 
hath he contrived it, that there is no part of his great workman- 
ship whereof even man cannot be able to give an irrefi'agable 
reason why thus framed, not otherwise. What were more easy 
than to say, that six legs to that unwieldy body had been cum- 
bersome and impeditive of motion, that the wings for so massy a 
bulk had been useless ? I admire thee, O God, in all the works of 
thy hands ; and justly magnify, not only thine omnipotence, both 
in the matter and form of their creation, but thy mercy and 
wisdom, in the equal distinbution of all their powers and faculties, 
which thou hast so ordered, that every creature hath some requi- 
site helps, no creature hath all. The fowls of the air, which 
are ordained for flight, hast thou furnished with feathers to bear 
them up in that light element : the fishes, with smooth scales and 
fins, for their more easy gliding through those watery regions : 
the beasts of the field, with such limbs and strong hides, as might 
fit them for service : as for man, the lord of all the rest, him 
thou hast endued with reason, to make his use of all these. Whom 
yet thou hast so framed, as that, in many qualities, thou hast al- 
lowed the brute creatures to exceed their master : some of them 
are stronger than he, some of them swifter than he, and more 
nimble than he : he were no better than a madman that should 
ask, why man should not fly as well as the bird, and swim as well 
as the fish, and run as fast as the hart ; since that one faculty of 
reason wherewith he is furnished is more worth than all the 
brutish excellencies of the world put together. my God, thou 
that hast enriched me with a reasonable soul, whom thou mightest 
have made the brutest of thy creatures : give me the grace so to 
improve thy gift, as may be most to the glory and advantage of 
thy own name : let me, in the name and behalf of all my brute 
fellow creatures, bless thee for them ; and both for them and 
myself, in a ravishment of spirit, cry out with the Psalmist, 
Lord iny God, how wonderful and excellent are thy works, in 
xvisdom hast thou made them all ! 



42 Self-Conferencees. [Soliloquy XXIII — 

XXIII.— r/ie Bodxj of Subjection. 

Bodily exercise, saith the apostle, profits little, i Tira. iv. 8. 
Little, sure, in respect of any worth that it hath in itself, or any 
thank that it can expect from the Almighty. For what is it to 
that good and great God, whether I be full or fasting ; whether I 
wake or sleep ; whether my skin be smooth or rough, ruddy or 
pale, white or discoloured ; whether my hand be hard with labour 
or soft with ease ; whether my bed he hard or yielding ; whether 
my diet be coarse or delicate ? But though in itself it avail little, 
yet so it may be, and hath been, and ought to be improved, as 
that it may be found exceedingly beneficial to the soul : else the 
same apostle would not have said, / keep binder my body, and 
bring it into subjection : lest that by any means, when I have 
preached to others^ I myself shoidd be a castaiuay, i Cor. ix. 27. 
In all the records of history, whom do we find more noted for 
holiness than those who have been most austere in the restraints 
of bodily pleasures and contentments? In the Mount of Tabor, 
who should meet with our Saviour in his transfiguration, but those 
two eminent saints which had fasted an equal number of days 
with himself? And our experience tells us, that what is detracted 
from the body is added to the soul : for the flesh and spirit are 
not more partners than enemies : one gains by the other^s loss ; 
the pampering of the flesh is the starving of the soul. I find an 
unavoidable emulation between these two parts of myself: O God, 
teach me to hold an equal hand betwixt them both : let me so use 
them as holding the one my favourite, the other my drudge ; not 
so humouring the worse part as to discontent the better ; nor so 
wholly regarding the better, as altogether to discourage the 
worse. Both are thine, both by gift and purchase ; enable thou 
me to give each of them their dues, so as the one may be fitted 
with all humble obsequiousness to serve, the other to rule and 
command with all just authority and moderation. 

XXIV. — The Ground of Unproficiency. 
Where there is defect in the principles, there can be no possi- 
bihty of prevailing in any kind. Should a man be so foolish as 
to persuade his horse, that it is not safe for him to drink in the 
extremity of his heat ; or to advise a child, that it is good for 
him to be whipt, or, in a case of mortal danger, to have a fon- 
tanel made in his flesh ; how fondly should he misspend his breath! 



—XXV.] Self-Conferences. 43 

because the one wants the faculty, the other the use, of reason. 
So, if a man shall sadly tell a wild sensuahst, that it is good for 
him to bear the yoke in his youth; that it is meet for him to 
curb and cross his unruly appetite ; that the bitterest cup of 
afflictions ought to be freely taken oiF, as the most sovereign me- 
dicine of the soul ; that we ought to bleed and die for the name 
of Christ ; that all the sufferings of the present times are not 
worthy to he compared with the glory that shall be revealed in 
us, Rom. viii.iS ; his labour is no less lost, than if he had made 
an eloquent oration to a deaf man : because this carnal hearer 
lacks that principle of grace and regeneration which only can 
enable him to apprehend and rehsh these divine counsels. I see, 
God, I see too well, how it comes to pass, that thy word sounds 
so loud and prevails so little ; even because it is not joined Avith 
faith in the hearers : the right principle is missing which should 
make the soul capable of thy divine mysteries. Faith is no less 
essential to the true Christian than reason is to man, or sense to 
a beast. do thou furnish my soul with this heavenly grace of 
thine; and then all thy sacred oracles shall be as clear to my 
understanding as any visible object is to ray sense. 

XXY.—The sure Refuge. 
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, saith our Saviour. 
Lo, every day hath its evil, and that evil is load enough for the 
present, without the further charge of our anticipated cares. 
Surely, the life of man is conflicted with such a world of crosses 
succeeding each other, that if he have not a sure refuge to flee 
unto, he cannot choose but be quite overlaid with miseries : one 
while, his estate suffers, whether through casualty or oppression : 
another while, his children miscarry, whether by sickness or 
death or disorder : one while, his good name is impeached ; an- 
other while, his body languishes : one while, his mind is perplexed 
with irksome suits ; another while, his soul is wounded with the 
sting of some secret sin : one while, he is fretted with domestical 
discontents ; another while, distempered with the public broils : 
one while, the sense of evil torments him ; another while, the 
expectation. Miserable is the case of that man who, when he is 
pursued with whole troops of mischiefs, hath not a fort wherein 
to succour himself; and safe and happy is that soul that hath a 
sure and impregnable hold whereto he may resort. the noble 
example of holy David ! never man could be more perplexed than 



44 Self Conferences. [Soliloquy XXVI — 

he was at his Ziklag ; his city burnt, his whole stock plundered, 
his wives carried away, his people cursincr, his soldiers mutinying, 
pursued by Saul, cast off by the Philistines, helpless, hopeless : 
but David fortified himself in the Lord his God, i Sara. xxx. 6. 
There, there, Lord, is a sure help in the time of trouble ; a 
safe protection in the time of danger ; a most certain remedy of 
all complaints: let my dove get once into the holes of that rock, 
in vain shall all the birds of prey hover over me for my de- 
struction. 

XXVI.— rAe light Burden. 

Why do we complain of the difficulty of a Christian profession, 
when we hear our Saviour say, My yoke is easy and my burden 
is light? Certainly, he that imposed it hath exactly poised it, 
and knows the weight of it to the full. It is our fault if we make 
or account that heavv which he knows to be light. If this yoke 
and burden be heavy to our sullen nature, yet to grace they are 
[easy] if they be heavy to fear, yet they are light to love. What is 
more sweet and easy than to love ; and love is all the burden we 
need to take up ; for love is tJie fulfilling of the laiu ; and the 
evangelical law is all the burden of my Saviour. blessed Jesu, 
how willingly do I stoop under thy commands ! It is no other 
than my happiness that thou requirest : I shall be therefore my 
own enemy, if I be not thv servant. Hadst thou not bidden me 
to love thee, to obey thee, thine infinite goodness and perfection 
of divine beauty would have attracted my heart to be spiritually 
enamoured of thee : now thou biddest me to do that which I should 
have wished to be commanded, how gladly do I yield up my soul 
to thee ! Lay on what load thou pleasest ; since the more I bear 
the more thou enablest me to bear, and the more I shall desire to 
bear. The world hath so clogged me this while with his worth- 
less and base lumber, that I have been readv to sink under the 
weight ; and what have I got by it, but a lame shoulder and a 
galled back ? do thou free me from this unprofitable and pain- 
ful luggage ; and ease my soul with the happy change of thy 
gracious impositions : so shall thy yoke not be easy only, but 
pleasing ; so shall thy fulfilled will be so far from a burden to me, 
that it shall be my greatest dehght upon earth, and my surest 
and comfortablest evidence for heaven. 

XXVII. — Joy Intermitted. 
What a hghtsomeness of heart do I now feel in myself for the 



— XXVIIL Self Conferences. 45 

present, out of a comfortable sense of thy presence, ray God, 
and the apprehension of my interest in thee ! Why should it not 
be thus always with me? Surely thine apostle bids me rejoice 
continually ; and who would not wish to do so ? For there is little 
difference betwixt joy and happiness : neither was it guessed ill by 
him that defined that man onlj' to be happy that is always de- 
lighted; and certainly there is just cause why 1 should be thus 
always affected. Thus, my God, thou art still and always the 
same : yea, the same to me in all thy gracious relations, of a mer- 
ciful Father, a loving Saviour, a sweet Comforter : yea, thou art 
my Head, and I am a limb of thy Mystical Body. Such T am and 
shall ever be. Thou canst no more change than not be ; and for 
me, my crosses and my sins are so far from separating me from 
thee, that they make me hold of thee the faster. But, alas ! 
though the just grounds of my joy be steady, yet my weak dis- 
p^Dsition is subject to variableness. While 1 carry this flesh about me, 
my soul cannot but be much swayed with the temper of my body, 
which sometimes inchnes me to a dull listlessness and a dumpish 
heaviness of heart and sadness of spirit ; so as I am utterly unapt 
to all cheerful thoughts, and find work enough to pull ray af- 
fections out of this stiff clay of the earth, and to raise them up to 
heaven. Besides, this joy of the Holy Ghost is a gift of thy divine 
bounty, which thou dispensest when and how thou pleasest, not 
always ahke to thy best favourites on earth : thou that givest thy 
sun and rain, dost not command thy clouds always to be dropping, 
nor those beams to shine continually upon any face : there would 
be no difference betwixt the proceeding of nature and grace, if 
both pi'oduced their effects in a set and constant regularity ; and 
what difference should I find betwixt my pilgrimage and my home, 
if I should here be taken up with a perpetuity of heavenly joy ? 
Should I always thus feelingly enjoy thee, my hfe of faith should 
be changed into a life of sense. It is enough for me, God, that 
above, in those regions of bliss, my joy in thee shall be full and 
permanent; if in the meanwhile it may please thee, that but 
some flashes of that celestial light of joy may frequently glance 
into my soul. It shall suffice, if thou give me but a taste of those 
heavenly pleasures whereon I shall once liberally feast with thee 
to all eternity. 

XXVtll. — Universal Interest. 
It was a noble praise that was given to that wise heathen 
(Cato), that he so carried himself as if he thought himself born 



46 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy XXVIII — 

for all the world. Surely the more universal a man's beneficence 
is, so much is it more commendable, and comes so much nearer to 
the bounty of that great God, who ojjeneth his hand, and filleth 
all things living with plenteousness. There are too many selfish 
men, whose spirits, as in a close retort, are cooped up within the 
compass of their own concernments, whose narrow hearts think 
they are born for none but themselves ; others, that would seem 
goodnatured men, are willing enough to enlarge themselves to 
their kindred, whom they are careful to advance, with neglect of 
all others, however deserving: some, yet more liberal minded, can be 
content to be kind and openhanded to their neighbours ; and some 
perhaps reach so far as to profess a readiness to do all good offices to 
their countrymen; but here their largeness finds its utmost bounds. 
All these dispositions are but inclosures ; give me the open cham- 
pain of a general and illimited benofacture. Is he rich? he 
scatters his seed abroad by whole handfuls over the whole ridge, 
and doth not drop it down between his fingers into the several 
furrows ; his bread is cast upon the waters also. Is he knowing 
and learned ? he smothers not his skill in his bosom, but freely 
lays it out upon the common stock ; not so much regarding his 
private contentment as the public proficiency. Is he deeply wise? 
he is ready to improve all his cares and counsels to the advance- 
ment and preservation of peace, justice, and good order amongst 
men. Now, although it is not in the power of any but persons 
placed in the highest orb of authority, actually to oblige the 
world to them ; yet nothing hinders, but that men of meaner rank 
may have the will to be thus universally beneficent, and may, in 
preparation of mind, be zealously affected to lay themselves forth 
upon the common good. Lord, if thou hast given me but a 
private and short hand, yet give me a large and public heart. 

XXIX. — The Spiritual Bedlam. 
He that with wise Solomon affects to know, not wisdom only, but 
madness and folly, let him, after a serious observation of the sober 
part of the world, obtain of himself to visit Bedlam, and to look 
into the several cells of distracted persons ; where it is a wonder 
to see what strange varieties of humours and passions shall present 
themselves to him. Here he shall see one weeping and wringing 
his hands for a merely imaginary disaster ; there, another holding 
his sides in a loud laughter, as if he were made all of mirth : here, 
one mopishly stupid, and so fixed to his posture, as if he were a 



— XXIX.] Self-Conferences. 47 

breathing statue ; there, another apishly active and restless : here, 
one ragingly fierce, and wreaking his causeless anger on his 
cliain ; there, another gloriously boasting of a mighty style of 
honour whereto his rags are justly entitled. And when he 
hath wondered a while at this woful spectacle, let him know and 
consider that this is but a slight image of those spiritual frensies 
wherewith the world is miserably possessed. The persons affected 
believe it not : surely, should I go about to persuade any of these 
guests of Bedlam that indeed he is mad, and should therefore 
quietly submit himself to the means of cure, I should be more 
mad than he; only dark rooms, and cords, and hellebore, are 
meet receipts for these mental distempers. In the mean while, 
the sober and sad beholders too well see these men^s wits out of 
the socket, and are ready, out of Christian charity, to force upon 
them due remedies who cannot be sensible of their own miseries. 

Now having learned of tiie great Doctor of the Gentiles to dis- 
tinguish man into spirit, soul, and body, i Thess. v. 23, whereof 
the body is as the earthly part, the soul as the ethereal, the spirit 
as the heavenly ; the soul animal, the spirit rational, the body 
merely organical : it is easy for him to observe, that as each of 
these parts exceeds other in dignity, so the distemperature thereof 
is so much greater and more dangerous as the part is more ex- 
cellent. When, therefore, he shall hear the prophet Hosea say. 
The spiritual man is mad, Hosea ix. 7, he cannot think that 
charge less than of the worst of frensies. 

And such indeed they are, which have been epidemical to all 
times. Could they pass for any other tlian sottishly mad that 
would worship cats and dogs and serpents 'i so did the old Egypt- 
ians, who thought themselves the most deeply learned of all na- 
tions. Could they be less mad than they, that of the same tree 
would make a block for their fire and a god for their adoration ? 
so did Isaiah's idolaters, Isaiah xUv. 16. Could they be any 
better, who, when they had molten their earrings, and with their 
own hands had shaped a golden calf, could fall down and worship 
it, and say. These he thy yods, Israel, which brought thee out 
of the land of Egypt ? so did they which should have known 
themselves God's peculiar people, Exod. xxxii. 4. Could they be 
any other than madmen that thought there was one god of the 
hills, another of the valleys ? so did the Syrian courtiers, 1 Kings 
XX. 23. Could they be any other than stark mad that would 
lance and gash their own flesh, because their block did not an- 



48 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy XXIX. 

swer tliem by fire? so did the Baalites, i Kings xviii. 28. Lastly, 
could they be other than the maddest of men, who would pass 
their own children through the fire and burn them to ashes in 
a pretence of devotion ? so did the clients of Moloch, 2 Kings 
xxiii. 10. 

Yea, what speak I of the times of ignorance ? even since the 
true light came into the world, and since the beams of his glorious 
Gospel shined on all faces, there hath been no less need of dark 
rooms and manacles than before. Can we think them other than 
notoriously mad, that, having good clothes to their backs, would 
needs strip them off, and go stark naked ? so did the Adamites of 
old, about the year of our Lord i 94 : so did certain Anabaptists 
of Holland, at Amsterdam, in the year 1535 : so did the cynical 
Saint Francis in the streets of Assissium. Could they be other 
than mad which would worship Cain, Judas, the Sodomites? so 
did those good devotionists, which were called Caiani, about the 
year 159. Nay, were they not worse than mad, who, if we may 
believe Hosius and Lindanus and Prateolus, worshipped the 
devil ten times every day ? so did those heretics which were in 
the last age called demoniaci. Could they be better than mad 
which held that beasts have reason as well as man ; that the ele- 
ments have life ; that plants have sense, and suffer pain in their 
cutting up ? so did the Manichees. Could they be other than 
blasphemously mad that held there are two gods, one good, the 
other evil, and that all creatures were made by the latter ? so did 
the Gnostics. Were there ever madmen in the world, if they 
were not such, who would beseech, yea force passengers to do 
them the favour to cut their throats, in a vain affectation of the 
praise of martyrdom ? so did the Circumcellions, a faction of 
Donatists in the year 349. But, above all other, did not those 
surpass in madness, who allowed of all heresies and professed to 
hold all opinions true? so did Rhetorius and his followers: St. 
Augustin's charity sticks at the belief of so impossible a tenet ; I 
must crave leave to wonder at his reason : " For," saith he, 
" many opinions being contradictory to each other, no man that 
is compos mentis can think both parts can be verifiable ;" as if it 
could be supposed that a Rhetorius, thus opening, could be any 
other than beside all his wits : surely, had he been himself, so 
impossible an absurdity could not have fallen from him ; neither 
could any of these forecited practices or opinions have been inci- 
dent into any but brains highly distempered. But what do we 



XXIX.] Self-Conferences. 49 

raking in the ashes of these old forgotten lunatics? Would to 
God we had not work, more than enough, to look for the pro- 
digious frensies of the present age ; than which there were never, 
since the world began, either more or worse ! 

Can there be, under the cope of heaven, a madder man than* 
he that can deny there is a God ? such a monster was rare, and 
hooted at in the times of Paganism. The heathen orator ^ tells 
us of but two, in those dark ages before him, that were so far 
forsaken of their Avits ; and we know that the old Athenians, when 
a bold pen durst but question a Deity, sentenced the book to the 
fire, and the author to exile. But now, alas ! I am ashamed to 
say, that this modern age, under so clear beams of the Gospel, 
hath bred many professed atheists, who have dared, not in their 
heart only, as in David's time, but with their blasphemous lips, to 
deny the God that made them. 

And are the frensies of those insolent souls any whit less wild 
and outrageous that dare boast themselves to be God, and stick 
not to style themselves absolutely deified ? avowing, that the soul 
in their body is the only Christ or God in the flesh ; that all the 
acts of their beastly and abominable lusts are the works of right- 
eousness ; that it is their perfection, and the highest pitch of their 
glory, to give themselves up to all manner of abominations Avith- 
out any reluctation ; that there is no hell but a dislike of, and 
remorse for, their greatest villaniesf : now show me, amongst the 
savagest of Pagans, any one that hath been thus desperately 
brainsick, and let me be branded for a slanderer. 

What should I need to instance in any more, or to contract a 
large volume of heresiology ? In short, there is no true heretic 
in the world that is not in some degree a madman. And this 
spiritual madness is so much worse than the natural, as in other 
regards, so especially in this ; that, whereas that distem])er of 
the brain contains itself in its own bounds, without any danger of 
diff'usion to others ; the spiritual, as extremely contagious, spreads 
its infection to the peril of all that come within the air of it. 

In this sad case, what is to be done ? Surely we may, as we 
do, mourn for the miserable distractions of the world ; but it is 
thou only, Lord, that canst heal them. thou that art the 

e Cicero de Natura Deorum : initio. Abominations : set forth under the 

[Deos nuUos esse omnino Diagoras Hands of i6 churches of Christ's Bap- 

Melius et Theodorus Cyrenaicus puta- tized into the Name of Christ." pp. 5, 

verunt.] 6, 7, &c. 

' " Heart-Bleedings for Professors' 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. B 



no Self -Confer encef^. [Soliloquy XXX — 

great and sovereign Physician of souls, that, after seven years' 
brutality, restoredst tlie frantic Babylonian to his shape and 
senses, look down mercifully upon our Bedlam, and restore the 
distracted world to their right temper once again : as for those 
that are yet sound, keep them,^ God, in their right wits unto 
the end ; preserve them safe from all the pestilent taintures of 
schism and heresy : and for me, the more insight thou givest me 
into, and the more sense of, these woful distempers, so much the 
more thankful do thou make me to thine infinite goodness, that 
thou hast been graciously pleased to keep me within compass. 
And 0, do thou still and ever keep me within the compass of thy 
revealed will and all just moderation, and suffer me not to be 
miscarried into any of those exorbitances of judgment which may 
prove a trouble to thy Church and a scandal to thy name. 

XXX. — The Difference of Actions. 
There is great difference in sins and actions, whether truly or 
seemingly offensive : there are gnats and there are camels. Nei- 
ther is there less difference in consciences : there are consciences 
so wide and vast, that they can swallow a camel ; and there are 
consciences so strait, as that they strain at a gnat : yea, which is 
strange to observe, those very consciences which one while are 
so dilated that they strain not at a camel, another while are so 
drawn together by an anxious scrupulousness, that they are ready 
to be choked with a gnat. How palpably was this seen in the 
ehdef priest and Pharisees and elders of the Jews ! the small 
gnat, of entering into the judgment hall of the Roman governor, 
would by no means down with them ; that heinous act would 
defile them, so as they should not eat the passover, John xviii. 
28 : but, in the mean time, the huge camel of the murder of the 
Lord passed down glib and easily through their throats. They 
are ready to choke with one poor ear of corn pulled on a sabbath 
by an hungry passenger, yet whole houses of widows, the while, 
pass down their gorges with ease. An unwashed hand or cup 
was piacular ; while, within, their hearts are full of extortion and 
excess, Matt, xxiii. 25. I wish the present age did not abound 
with instances. It is the fashion of hypocrites to be seemingly 
scrupulous in small things, while they make no conscience at all 
of the greatest : and to be so much less conscionable of greater 
matters of the law^ judgment, mercy, and faith, as they are 
more scrupulously punctual in their mint, anise, and cummin. O 



—XXXII.] Self-Conferences. 31 

God, I would not make more sius than tlioii hast made. I desire 
to have an heart wisely tender, not fondly scrupulous. Let my 
soul endure no fetters but thine. If indifferent things may be my 
gnats, let no known sin be other than a camel to me ; and let me 
I'ather choke in the passage than let down such a morsel. 

XXXI. — The Necessity of Labour. 
The great and wise God, that hath been pleased to give to all 
creatures their life and being, without their endeavour or know- 
ledge, hath yet ordained not to continue their being without their 
own labour and cooperation ; so as he hath imposed upon them 
all a necessity of painstaking for their own preservation. The 
wild beasts of the desert must walk abroad and forage far for 
their prey : the beasts of the field must earn their pasture with 
their work and labour, in very feeding to fill a large maw, Avith 
picking up those several mouthfuls whereby they are sustained : 
the fowls of several kinds must fly abroad to seek their various 
diet ; some in the hedges, some in the fields, some in the waters : 
the bee must, with unwearied industry, gather her stock of wax 
and honey out of a thousand flowers. Neither know I any that 
can be idle and live. But man, as he is appointed to be the lord 
of all the rest, so he is in a special manner born to labour, as 
he upon whom the charge lies to provide both for himself and all 
the creatures under his command : being not more impotent than 
they, in his first entrance into the world, than he is afterwards, 
by the power of his reason, more able to govern them, and to 
order all things that may concern both their use and conserva- 
tion. How willingly, Lord, should I stoop to this just condition 
of my creation ! Labour is my destiny, and labour shall be my 
trade. Something I must always do, both out of thy command 
and my own inclination, as one, whose not unactive spirit abhors 
nothing more than the torment of doing nothing. O God, do 
thou direct me to and employ me in those services that may be 
most for thy glory, for the good of others, and my own discharge 

and comfort. 

XXXII. — Acquaintance with Heaven. 

What an high favour is it in the great God of heaven, that he 
is pleased to stoop so low as to allow wretched man here upon 
earth to be acquainted with so infinite a Majesty! yet, in the 
multitudes of his mercies, this hath he condescended unto. So far 
hath he yielded to us, as that he is pleased we should know him ; 

E 3 



52 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy XXX 1 11 — 

and to that end he hath clearly revealed himself to mankind : 
and more than so, he is wiUing and content that we should enjoy 
him, and should continually make a comfortable use of his pre- 
sence with us; that we should walk with him, and impart all our 
secret thoughts and counsels to him ; that we should call for his 
gracious aid upon all our occasions ; that we should impart all 
our wants and fears and doubts to him, with expectation of a 
merciful and sure answer and supply from heaven ; yea, that he 
should invite us, silly wretches, to his presence, and call us up to 
the throne of grace, and encourage us poor souls, dejected with 
the conscience of our unworthiness, to put up our suits boldly to 
his merciful hands ; yea, that he should give this honour to dust 
and ashes, as to style us his friends. How shamefully unthankful, 
and how justly miserable shall I be, if 1 make not an answerable 
use of so infinite a mercy ! O God, how utterly unworthy shall I 
be of this grace, if, notwithstanding these merciful proifers and 
solicitations, 1 shall continue a willing stranger from thee, and 
shall make no more improvement of these favours than if they 
had never been rendered ! let me know thee ; let me acknow- 
ledge thee ; let me. adore thee ; let me love thee ; let me walk 
with thee ; let me enjoy thee ; let me, in an holy and awful fa- 
miliarity, be better and more entirely acquainted with thee than 
with the world, than with myself: so 1 shall be sure to be happy 
here, and hereafter glorious. 

XXXIIl. — The all-sufficient Knowledge. 
I find much inquiry of curious wits, whether we shall know one 
another in heaven. There is no want of arguments on both 
parts ; and the greatest probabilities have seemed to be for the 
affirmative. But, Lord, whether or no we shall know one an- 
other, 1 am sure we shall all, thy glorified saints, know thee, 
and in knowing thee we shall be infinitely happy : and what 
would be more? Surely, as we find here that the sun puts out 
the fire, and the greater light ever extinguisheth the less ; so, 
why may we not think it to be above ? When thou art all in all 
to us, what can the knowledge of any creature add to our blessed- 
ness'/ And if, when we casually meet with a brother or a son 
before some great prince, we forbear the ceremonies of our mu- 
tual respects, as being wholly taken up with the awful regard of 
a greater presence; how much more may we justl}^ think, that 
when we meet before the glorious throne of the God of heaven, 



—XXXIV.] Self-Conferences. 53 

all the respects of our former earthly relations must utterly 
cease, and be swallowed up of that beatifical presence, divine love, 
and infinitely blessed fruition of the Almighty! God, it is my 
great comfort here below to think and know that T have parents 
or children, or brothers and sisters, or friends, already in posses- 
sion of glory with thee ; and to believe assuredly, that, in my 
time, I shall be received to tiie association of their blessedness : 
but if, upon the dissolution of this earthly tabernacle, I may be 
admitted to the sight of thy all-glorious essence, and may set eye 
upon the face of my blessed Saviour, now sitting at the right 
hand of thy incomprehensible Majesty, attended with those mil- 
hons of his heavenly angels, 1 shall neither have need nor use of 
inquiring after my kindred according to the flesh. What can 
fall into my thoughts or desires beside or beyond that which is 

infinite ? 

XXXIY. — Poor Greatness. 

I cannot but look with much pity mixed with smiles upon the 
vain worldling, that sets up his rest in these outward things, and 
so pleases himself in this condition, as if he thought no man happy 
but himself. How high he looks ! how big he speaks ! how 
proudly he struts ! With what scorn and insultatlon doth he look 
upon my dejectedness ! The very language of his eye is no other 
than contempt, seeming to say, " Base indigent, thou art stripped 
of all thy wealth and honour ; thou hast neither flocks, nor herds^ 
nor lands, nor manors, nor bags, nor barnfuls, nor titles, nor 
dignities, all which I have in abundance ; no man regards thy 
meanness, I am observed with an awful veneration." Be it so, 
great sir, think I : enjoy you your height of honour and heaps 
of treasure, and ceremonies of state, while I go shrugging in a 
threadbare coat, and am glad to feed on single dishes, and to 
sleep under a thatched roof; but, let me tell you, set your all 
against my nothing if you have set your heart upon these gay 
things ; were you the heir of all the earth I would be loath to 
change condition with your eminence ; and will take leave to 
tell you, that at your best you shall fall within my commiseration. 
It is not in the power of all your earthly privileges to render you 
other than a miserable vassal. If you have store of gold, alas! it 
is but made up into fetters and manacles; and what is all your out- 
w^ard bravery but mere matter of opinion ? I shall show you an 
Indian slave that shall no less pride himself in a bracelet of glass 
beads than you can in you richest jewels of rubies and diamonds. 



54 ^elf-Conferences. [Soliloquy XXXV — 

All earthly things are as they are vahied. The wise and almighty 
JMaker of these earthern n:iines esteems the best metals but as thick 
clay; and why should we set any other price on them than their 
Creator? And, if we be wont to measure the worth of all things 
by their virtues and uses and operations, what is it that your 
wealth can do ? Can it free you from cares 1 can it lengthen your 
steps ? can it keep you from headaches, from gouts, dropsies, 
fevers, and other bodily distempers ? can it ransom you from 
death? can it make your account easier in the great day of 
reckonins:? Are vou ever the wiser, ever the holier, ever the 
quieter, for that which you have purchased with tears and blood 't 
And, were it so precious as you imagnne, what hold have you of 
it? what assurance to enjoy it or yourself but one hour ? As for 
despised me, I have wealth that you know not of : my riches are 
invisible, invaluable, interminable : God all-sufficient is mine ; and 
with him all things : my treasure is not locked up in earth or in 
heaven ; but fills both : my substance is sure ; not obnoxious to 
plunder or loss or diminution : no man hath bled, no widow or 
orphan hath wept for my enriching : the only difference is this, 
you are miserable, and think yourself happy; I am happy, whom 
you think miserable : however our thoughts may bear us out in 
both for a while, yet at the last, except truth itself can deceive 
us, the issue must fall on my side. God, be thou my portion, 
and the lot of mine inheritance : let the scum of the world spit 
in ray face, as the most despicable of all creatures : I am above 
the despite of men and devils, and am secretly happy, and shall 
be eternally glorious. 

XXXV. — Acceptation of Desires. 

What a comfort it is to us weak wretches that we have to deal 
with a merciful God, that measures us, not by our performances, 
but by the truth of our desires ! David had a good mind to build 
God an house : his hands were too bloody to lav the foundation 
of so holy a fabric ; yet God takes it as kindly from him as if he 
had finished the work, and rewards the intention of building an 
house to his name with the actual building of an house to David 
for ever. Good Hezekiah knew how easy and welcome a suit he 
made, when, after all endeavours of sanctifying the people for the 
celebration of that great passover, he prayed, The Lord pardon 
every one that prepareth his heart to seek God, the Lord God of 
his fathers, thovr//i he be not cleansed according to the purifica- 



— XXXVIL] Self-Conferences. 55 

tion of the sanctuary, 2 Chron. xxx. 18, 19. Alas ! we cannot 
be but lame in all our obediences. What can fall from defective 
causes but imperfect effects ? If we pray, we are apt to entertain 
unmeet notions of the infinite Spirit to whom we address our 
suppUcations, and sudden glances of wandering thoughts : if we 
read or hear, we are subject to vain distractions : if we approach 
God's table, our souls fail of that exact preparation and purity 
wherewith they should be decked when they come to that celestial 
banquet : if we do the works of justice or mercy, it is not without 
some light touch of self-respect ; and well may we say with the 
blessed apostle, The good that I would I do not, Rom. vii. 19 : 
we should therefore find just cause of discouragement in ourselves 
if our best actions were to be weighed by their own worth, and 
not by our better intentions : but that gracious God, who puts 
good desires into us, is so ready to accept of them, that he looks 
not so much at what we have done, as at what we wished to 
have done ; and, without respect to our defects, crowns our good 
affections. All that I can say for myself, my God, is, that the 
desire of my heart is to please thee in all things : my comfort 
then is, though my abilities fail in the performance, yet thy mer- 
cies cannot fail in my acceptation. 

XXXVI. — Heavenly Joys. 
Doubtless, God, thou that hast given to men, even thine ene- 
mies here upon earth, so excellent means to please their outward 
senses ; such beautiful faces and admirable filowers, to delight 
the eye ; such delicate scents from their garden, to please the 
smell ; such curious confections and delicate sauces, to please the 
taste ; such sweet music from the birds, and artificial devices of 
ravishing melody from the art of man, to delight the ear ; hast 
much more ordained transcendent pleasures and infinite content- 
ments for thy glorified saints above. My soul, while it is thus 
clogged and confined, is too strait to conceive of those incompre- 
hensible ways of spiritual delectation which thou hast provided 
for thy dear chosen ones, triumphing with thee in thy heaven. 
O teach me to wonder at that which I cannot here attain to know, 
and to long for that happiness which I there hope to enjoy with 
thee for ever. 

XXXVII. — Mixed Contentments. 
What a fool were I, if I should think to find that which 



56 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy XXXVIIl — 

Solomon could not — contentment upon earth ! His greatness, 
wealth, and wisdom gave him opportunity to search, where my 
irapotency is shut out : were there any thing under heaven free 
from vanity and vexation, his curious inquisition could not have 
missed it. No, alas ! all our earthly contentments are like a 
Jewish passover, which we must eat with sour herbs. Have I 
wealth ? I cannot be void of cares : have I honour ? I cannot be 
rid of envy : have I knowledge ? He that increaseth knowledge 
increaseth sorrow, saith the kingly Preacher: have I children? 
it were strange, if without crosses : have I pleasures ? not without 
.stinff : have I health ? not without the threats of disease : have I 
full diet? not without the inconveniences of satiety: have I beauty? 
not without a snare to my soul; Thus it is in all our sublunary 
comforts ; I cannot have the rose, but I must be content with the 
prickles. Pure and absolute pleasure dwells elsewhere, far above 
the reach of this vale of misery. God, give me to seek it there 
only; not without a contemptuous neglect of all those deceitful 
vanities which would withdraw ray soul from thee : and there let 
me find it, while I am here, by faith ; when I remove hence, by 
personal fruition. In the mean time, let me take what thou givest 
me with patience and thankfulness ; thankfulness for the meat, 
and patience with the sauce. 

XXX Vni.— True Wealth. 

All a man's wealth or poverty is within himself; it is not the 
outward abundance or want that can make the difference. Let a 
man be never so rich in estate, yet if his heart be not satisfied, 
but he is still whining and scraping and pining for more, that 
man is miserably poor : all his bags cannot make him other than 
a stark beggar. On the other side, give me a man of small 
means, whose mind is thoroughly content with a little, and enjoys 
his pittance with a quiet and thankful heart, that man is exceed- 
ing rich; all the world cannot rob him of his wealth. It is not 
having, by which we can measure riches, but enjoying. The 
earth hath all treasures in it, vet no man stvles it rich. Of 
these, which the world call goods of fortune, only opinion sets 
the value. Gold and silver would be metals whether we think 
them so or not ; they would not be riches, if men's conceit and 
institution did not make them such. O my soul, be not thou 
carried away with the common error, to covet and admire those 
things which have no true worth in themselves ; if both the Indies 



— XL.] Self-Coiiferences. 57 

were thine, thou shouldest be no whit the wealthier : labour for 
those riches whereby thy stock may be advanced. The great 
Lord of all, who knows best where his wealth lies, and where 
thou shouldest hoard up thine, hath told thee where to seek it, 
where to lay it : Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, 
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break 
through and steal; hut lay up for yourselves treasures in 
heaven, Matt. vi. 19, 20. There thou shalt be sure to find it 
entire, free from plunder, and all danger of diminution. God, 
give me to covet that my mind may be rich in knowledge ; that 
ray soul may be rich in grace ; that my heart may be rich in 
true contentation : as for this pelf of the world, let it make them 
miserable that admire it. 

XXXIX.— i^«/.9^ Light. 

Looking forth one starry evening, my eye met with a glorious 
Hoht, that seemed fairer than its fellows. While I was studvinjr 
what planet it might be, it suddenly glided down and vanished. 
God, how can we hope to avoid delusions upon earth, when 
even the face of heaven may thus deceive us ? It is no otherwise 
in the firmament of the Church : how many have there been that 
have seemed eternally fixed in that high sphere, which have proved 
no other than base meteors gilded with fair beams ! they appeared 
stars, their substance was but slime. Woe were to the earth if a 
true star should fall. Yea, I doubt whether the fabric of heaven 
would stand if one of those glorious lights should drop down. If 
therefore, the star Wormwood shall fall and embitter the waters, 
he shall show himself to be but a false star, and a true impostor; 
else heaven should fall as soon as he. my God, give me grace 
to know the truth of my substance, and the firmness of my station: 
let me hate all counterfeit exaltations : let me know myself the 
least and most insensible star of thy galaxy: so shall I be happy 
in thee, and thou shalt be bv me glorified. 

XL. — The Haste of Desire. 
How slowly the hours seem to pace when we are big with the 
desire and expectation of any earthly contentment! We are ready 
to chide the time for standing still when we would over-hasten 
the fruition of our approaching comfort. So the schoolboy longs 
for his play-day ; the apprentice, for his freedom ; the ward, for 



58 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy XLI— 

his livery; the bride, for her nuptials; the heir, for his inherit- 
ance : so approvedly true is that of wise Solomon, Hope deferred 
maketh the heart sick, Prov. xiii. 12. Were it not, my soul, 
for that wretched infidelity which cleaves so close unto thee, thou 
couldest not but be thus aifected to thy heaven, and shouldest be 
vet so much more as the joys there are infinitely more exquisite 
than those which this earth can afford. Surely thou dost but 
flatter me with the overweening conceit of the firm apprehension 
of my faith, while I find thee so cool in the longing desires of thy 
glorification. What! hast thou no stomach to thy happiness? 
Hath the world benumbed thee with such a dull stupidity, that 
thou art grown regardless and insensible of eternal blessedness? 
shake off this lethargic heaviness of spirit which hath possessed 
thee, and rouse up thyself to those ardent desires of glory which 
have sometimes inflamed thee. Yea, Lord, do thou stir up that 
heavenly fire that now lies raked up in the embers of my soul, 
and ravish my heart with a longing desire of thy salvation. 

XLI. — Death's Remembrancers. 

Every thing that I see furnishes me with fair monitions of my 

dissolution. If I look into my garden, there I see some flowers 

fading, some withered : if I look to the earth, I see that mother 

in whose womb I must lie ; if I go to church, the graves that I 

must step over in my way show me what I must trust to ; if I look 

to my table, death is in every dish, since what I feed on did once 

live ; if I look into my glass, I cannot but see death in my face ; 

if I go to my bed, there I meet with sleep, the image of death, and 

the sheets, which put me in mind of my winding up ; if I look 

into my study, what are all those books but the monuments of 

other dead authors ? my soul, how canst thou be unmindful of 

our parting, when thou art plied with so many monitors ? Cast 

thine eyes abroad into the world, what canst thou see but killing 

and dying ? Cast thine eyes up into heaven, how canst thou but 

think of the place of thy approaching rest ? How justly then may 

1 say with the apostle, By our rejoicing ivhich I have in Christ 

Jesus, I die daily ! i Cor. xv. 3 1 . And, Lord, as I daily die in 

the decay of this frail nature, so let me die daily in my affection 

to life, in my preparation for death. do thou fit me for that 

last and happy change. Teach me so to number my days that I 

may apply my heart to wisdom, and address it to ensuing glory. 



— XLIIL] Self -Conferences. 59 

XLW.—FaitlCs Victorij. 

We are here in a perpetual warfare, and fight we must; surely 
either fight or die. Some there are that do both ; that is, ac- 
cording as the quarrel is, and is managed. There are those that 
fight against God ; these, meddling with so unequal a match, can- 
not look to prevail. Again, the flesh warreth against the spirit ; 
this intestine rebellion cannot hope to prosper. But if, with the 
Chosen Vessel, I can say, I have fought a good fight, i Tim. iv. 7, 
1 can neither lose life nor miss of victory. And what is that good 
fight ? Even the same apostle tells me, The fight of faith, 1 Tim. 
vi. 12. This is the good fight indeed, both in the cause and ma- 
naging, and the issue. Lo, this faith it is that wins God to my 
side ; that makes the Almighty mine ; that not only engages him 
in my cause, but unites me to him, so as his strength is mine. In 
the poiver of his might, therefore, I cannot but be victorious over 
all my spiritual enemies by the only means of this faith. For Satan, 
this shield of faith is it that shall quench all the fiery darts of 
that wicked one, Eph. vi. 16. For the world; this is the victory 
that overcomes the world ; even our faith, i John v. 4. Be sure 
to find thyself furnished with this grace, and then say, " my 
soul, thou hast marched vahantly ; the powers of hell shall not be 
able to stand before thee ; they are mighty, and have all ad- 
vantages of a spiritual nature, of long duration and experience, 
of place, of subtlety ; yet this conquering grace of faith is able to 
give them the foil, and to trample over all the powers of dark- 
ness. O my Lord God, do thou arm and fortify my soul with a 
lively and steadfast faith in thee, I shall not fear what man nor 
devil can do unto me : settle my heart in a firm reliance upon 
thee, and turn me loose to what enemy thou pleasest, 

XLIII. — The Unfailing Friend. 
Next to the joy of a good conscience, there is no greater com- 
fort upon earth than the enjoyment of dear friends; neither is 
there any thing more sad than their parting ; and by how nearer 
their relations are, so much greater is our sorrow in foregoing 
them. What moan did good David make both for Absalom, as a 
son, though ungracious, and for Jonathan, as a friend! Surely 
when our dear ones are pulled away from us, we seem to have 
limbs torn away from our bodies ; yet this is a thing must be looked 
for ; we are given to each other, or lent rather, upon con- 



(jO Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy XLIV — 

dition of parting : either they must leave us, or we them ; a parting 
there must be, as sure as there was a meeting. It is our fault if 
we set our hearts too much upon that which may, yea, which must 
be lost. Be wise, my soul, and make sure of such friends as 
thou canst not be bereaved of. Thou hast a God that hath said, 
I xvill not leave thee nor forsake thee. It was an easy suit, and 
already granted, which the holy Psalmist made ; Cast me not off 
in the time of old age : forsake me not when my strength faileth, 
Psalm Ixxi. 9 : and again, When my father and my mother forsake 
me, in their farewell to a better world, yet then the Lord ivilL 
take me up. Psalm xxvii. to. It is an happy thing to have im- 
mortal friends. Stick close unto them, my soul, and rejoice in 
them evermore ; as those that shall sweetly converse with thee 
here, and shall at last receive thee into everlasting habitations. 

XLIY. — Quiet Humility. 

He is a rare man that is not vvise in his own conceit, and that 
says not within himself, " I see more than my neighbours ;" for 
Ave all are born proud and self-opinionate, and when we are come 
to our imaginary maturity, are apt to say with Zedekiah, to those 
of better judgment than our own. Which ivay went the Spirit of 
God from me to speak unto thee? i Kings xxii. 24. Hence have 
arisen those strange varieties of wild paradoxes, both in philosophy 
and reliction, wherewith the world abounds every where. When 
our fancy hath entertained some uncouth thought, our self-love is 
apt to hatch it up, our confidence to broach it, and our obstinacy 
to maintain it ; and if it be not too monstrous, there will not want 
some credulous fools to abet it ; so as the only way, both to peace 
and truth, is true humility ; which will teach us to tliink meanly 
of our own abilities, to be diffident of our own apprehensions and 
judgments, to ascribe much to the reverend antiquity, greater 
sanctity, deeper insight of our blessed predecessors. This only 
will keep us in the beaten road, without all extravagant deviations 
to untrodden bypaths. Teach me, O Lord, evermore to think 
myself no whit wiser than I am ; so shall I neither be vainly ir- 
regular, nor the Church troublesomely unquiet. 

XLV. — Sure Mercies. 
There is nothing more troublesome in human society than the 
disappoint of trust and failing of friends ; for besides the disorder 
that it works in our own affairs, it commonly is attended with a 



— XLVl.] Self- Conferences. 61 

necessary deficiency of our performances to others. The leaning 
upon a broken reed gives us both a fall and a wound. Such is a 
false friend, who after professions of love and real offices either 
slinks from us or betrays us. This is that which the great pattern 
of patience so bitterly complains of, as none of his least afflictions ; 
My kinsfolk have failed me, and my familiar friends have for- 
gotten me. Job xix. 14. It went to the heart of David, that his own 
familiar friend, in whom he trusted, which did eat of his bread, 
should lift up his heel against him, Psalm xh. 9. And surely those 
that are stanch and faithful in themselves cannot but be so much 
the more deeply affected with the perfidious dealing of others, 
and vet also so much the more as their confidence and entireness 
was greater : this was that which heightened the vexation of that 
man who is so famous for the integrity of his heart : It was thou, 
a man, mine equal, my guide, my acquaintance. We took 
sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in 
company. Psalm Iv. 13, 14. And still our daily experience gives 
us miserable instances in this kind. He hath had little to do in 
the world that hath not spent many a sigh upon others' faithless- 
ness. And now, my soul, the more sad proof thou hast had of 
the untrusty disposition and carriage of men, the more it concerns 
thee to betake thyself in all zealous and absolute affiance unto the 
sure protection and never-failing providence of thy God ; the God 
who, being truth itself, never did, never can forfeit his trust to any 
soul that relied upon his most certain promises, upon his promised 
mercies, upon his merciful and just performances : My soul, wait 
thou only upon God ; for my expectation is from him. He only 
is my rock and my salvation : in God is my salvation and my 
glory : the rock of my strength, and my refuge is in God, Psalm 
Ixii. 5—7. It shall not trouble thee to find men false while thou 
hast such a true God to have recourse unto. 

X L V I . — Dangerous Prosperity . 
It was a just and needful precaution, God, which thou 
gavest of old to thine Israel : When thou shalt have eaten and 
art fill ; then heivare lest thou forget the Lord, Deut. vi. 11 ^ 12. 
There was not so great fear of forgetting thee while they were 
in an hungry and dry wilderness ; although even there they did 
too often forget themselves in an ungracious murmuring against 
thee and their leaders : the greatest danger of their forgetting 
thee would be, thou knewest, when they should come to be pam- 



(jo Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy XLVII — 

pei-ed in the land that flowed with milk and honey. There it 
was that, accordingly, Jesurun waxed fat, and kicked: there, 
beino- oTovvn thick and covered with fatness, he forsook God 
■which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salva- 
tion, Dcut. xxxii. 15. Nothing is more difficult than to keep our- 
selves from growing wanton by excess ; whereas nature, kept low, 
is capable of just obedience : like as in the body also, a full feed 
breeds superfluous and vicious humours; whereas a spare diet 
keeps it both clean and healthful. Do not I see, Lord, even 
the man, that was after thine own heart, while thou keptest him 
in breath, with the persecution of an unjust master, how tenderly 
conscientious he was ; remorsed in himself for but cutting off a 
lap of the robe of his causeless pursuer, 1 Sam. xxiv. 5 ; who yet, 
when he came to the full scope of his ease and courtly jollity, 
made no scruple of the adulterous bed of fair Bathsheba or the 
bloody murder of a faithful Uriah. Who was I, Lord, that I 
should promise myself an immunity from the peril of a pros- 
perous condition, under which thy holier servants have miscar- 
ried ? It was thy goodness and wisdom, who foreseest not what 
shall be only, but what might be also, in prevention of the danger 
of my surfeit to take away the dish whereon I might have over- 
fed. God, I do humbly submit to thy good pleasure, and con- 
tentedly rest upon thy providence ; which hast thought fit rather 
to secure me in the safe use of my little, than to exercise me with 
the temptations of a bewitching plenty. 

XLVIL — Cheerful Obedience. 

It is not so much the work that God stands upon, as the mind 
of the worker. The same act may be done with the thanks and 
advantage of one agent, and with frowns and disrespect to an- 
other. If we do our business grudgingly, and because we must, 
out of the necessity of our subsistence, we shall have as much 
thank to sit still : it is our own need that sets our hands on 
work, not our obedience ; so as herein we are our own slaves, 
not God's servants; whereas, if we go about the works of^our 
calling cheerfully, offering them up to God as our willing sacri- 
fice, in an humble compliance with his commands, and an awful 
and comfortable expectation of his gracious acceptance, we are 
blessed in our holy endeavours, and cannot fail of an Euge from 
our Master in heaven. Alas ! Lord, it is but little that I can do ; 
and without thy enabUng, nothing. Thou, that vouchsafest to give 



— XLIX.] Self-Conferences. 63 

me an abilitation to the work, put into me also good affections to 
thee in performing of it : let me do thy will here, as thy angels 
do in heaven, Avith all gracious readiness and alacrity ; and be no 
less glad that I shall do it, than that it is done : so, while carnal 
hearts shall languish under their forced tasks, my labour shall be 
ray pleasure ; and I shall find unspeakable comfort both in the 
conscience of my act and the crown of my obedience. 

XLVIII. — Heavenly Accordance. 

As our condition here upon earth is different, so must our af- 
fection needs be also. That which is one man's joy is another^s 
grief ; one man^s fear is another man's hope : neither can it be 
otherwise, while our occasions draw us to so manifest contradic- 
tions of disposition. These diversities and contrarieties of incli- 
nation and desire are the necessary symptoms of our wretched 
mortality ; and the nearer we grow to the perfection of our 
blessedness, the more shall we concentrate in the united scope of 
all our actions and affections, which is the sole glory of our 
Creator. Know then, my soul, that the closer thou canst 
gather up thyself in all the exercises of thy faculties, and pro- 
posals of thy desires, to the only respect of the honour of that 
great and good God which gave thee thy being, thou aspirest so 
much nearer to thy heaven, where all the blessed saints and 
angels agree together in one perpetual employment of praising 
their Maker ; and sweetly accord in that one most perfect ditty 
and note of an eternal Hallelujah to him that sits upon the throne 
of that celestial glory. O God, do thou draw in my heart more 
and more from this variety of earthly distractions, and fix it upon 
this one heavenly work : put me upon that blessed task here 
below which shall never know any end, but endure for ever in 

heaven. 

XLIX. — Divine Bounty. 

Had not the apostle said so, yet our own sense and experience 
would have told us, that every good and perfect gift is from 
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, James i. 17 ^ 
for sure from below it cannot come. How should any perfect 
gift arise from the region of all imperfection ? how should evil 
afford any good ? what is below but earth and hell ? whereof the 
one yields nothing but torment, the other nothing but misery and 
sin. If therefore it be perfect or good, since nothing can give 
what it hath not, it must needs come from above. And from 



64 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy L — 

whom above? Not from those lightsome bodies of the stars, whose 
influences cannot reach unto the soul ; whose substance is not 
capable of any spiritual power, whether to have or give perfect 
gifts: not from the blessed spirits, which are angels of light; 
they may help, through God's gracious appointment, to convey 
blessings to us ; they neither will or can challenge an original 
and primary interest in the blessings which they convey : only, 
therefore, from the Father of lights; who, as he is light, so is the 
Author of all whatsoever light, both inward and outward, spiritual 
and sensible. And as light was the first good and perfect gift 
which he bestowed on the world, so it well may imply all the 
spiritual blessings conferred on the creature ; so as he that said. 
Let there be light, said also, " Let this man be wise ; let that be 
learned ; let that other be gracious and holy." Whence, then, O 
whence can I look for any good thing but from thy hands, my 
God, who givest to all men liberally and upbraidest not, James 
i. 5; whose infinite treasure is not capable of any diminution, since 
the more thou givest, thy store is not the less, thy glory more. 
Thou dost not sell thy favours, as we men are apt to do, looking 
through our small bounty at an expected retribution ; but thou 
givest most freely, most absolutely : neither dost thou lend thy 
best blessings, as looking to receive them back again, but so 
conveyest them to us as to make them our own for ever : since 
therefore thy gifts are so free, that all thy heavenly riches may 
be had for asking, how worthy shall 1 be to want them, if I do 
not sue for them to the throne of thy grace ! Yet even this, since 
it is a good thing, I cannot do without thee : 0, then, give thou 
me the grace that I may be ever begging faithfully of thee, and 
give me the graces that I beg for. 

L. — Sweet Use of Power. 

I see that great, wise, and holy God, who might most justly make 
use of his absolute power, yet proceeds sweetly with his creature 
in all his ways. He might force some to salvation in spite of 
their will ; he might damn others merely for his pleasure, without 
respect to their sin : but he doth not, he will not do either of 
these ; but goes along graciously and gently with us, inviting us 
to repentance, and earnestly tendering to us the means of salva- 
tion; on the one side, with effectual persuasions, and strong 
motives, and kindly inclinations to an answerable obedience ; 
on the other side, laying before us the fearful menaces of his 



— LI.] Self-Conferences. 65 

judgments denounced against sinners, urging all powerful dis- 
suasions, and using all probable means to divert us from all the 
ways of wickedness, and, when those prevail not, justly punishing 
us for our wilful disobedience, impenitence, and infidelity. 
God, how should we learn of thee to proceed with all our fellow- 
creatures, but much more with our Christian brethren, not ac- 
cording to the rigour of any pretended prerogative of power; 
but in all merciful tenderness, in all gentle and fair means of 
their reclamation on the one side, and, on the other, in an un- 
willing and constrained severity of necessary justice ! And how 
much doth it concern thee, my soul, not to stay till thy God 
shall drag thee to repentance and salvation, but gladly to embrace 
all those happy opportunities, and cheerfully to yield to all those 
merciful solicitations, which thy God offers thee for thy full con- 
version, and carefully to avoid those ways of sin and death which 
he hath, under so dreadful denunciations, graciously warned thee 
to shun ; else thy God is cleared, both in his justice and mercy, 
and thy perdition is of thyself ! 

LI. — The Power of Conscience. 
It is a true word of the apostle, God is greater than our con- 
science ; and, surely, none but he : under that great God, the 
supreme power on earth is the conscience. Every man is a little 
world within himself; and in this little world there is a court of 
judicature erected, wherein, next under God, the conscience sits 
as the supreme judge, from whom there is no appeal ; that passeth 
sentence upon us, upon all our actions, upon all our intentions ; 
for our persons, absolving one, condemning another ; for our 
actions, allowing one, forbidding another. If that condemn us, in 
vain shall all the world beside acquit us ; and if that clear us, the 
doom which the world passeth upon us is frivolous and ineffectual. 
I grant this judge is sometimes corrupted, with the bribes of 
hope, with the weak fears of loss, with an undue respect of per- 
sons, with powerful importunities, with false witnesses, with forged 
evidences, to pass a wrong sentence upon the person or cause ; 
for which he shall be answerable to Him that is hio-her than the 
highest: but yet this doom, though reversible by the tribunal of 
Heaven, is still obligatory on earth ; so as it is my fault that my 
conscience is misled, but it is not my fault to follow my conscience. 
How much need have I therefore, O my God, to pray that thou 
wouldest guide my conscience aright, and keep this great judge in 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. F 



66 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy LII. 

my bosom from corruption and error ! and what need hath this 
intestine arbiter of mine to take special care that he may avoid 
all misinformations that may mislead his judgment, and all the 
base suggestions of outward advantage or loss that may deprave 
his affections ! And, thou, that only art greater than my con- 
science, keep me from doing aught against my conscience : I 
cannot disobey that, but I must offend thee ; since that is but thine 
officer under thee, and only commands for thee. 

LTI. — Proud Poverty. 
That which wuse Solomon observed in the temporal estates of 
men holds no less true in the spiritual : There is that maketh 
himself rich, yet hath nothhig : there is that maketh himself 
poor, yet hath great riches, Prov. xiii. 7. On the one side we 
meet with a proud but beggarly Laodicean, that says, / am rich, 
and increased with goods, and have need of nothing ; which will 
not know that he is wretched, and miserable, and 2^oor, and 
blind, and naked, Rev. iii. 17: this man, when the means of 
further grace are tendered him, can say, as Esau did of the 
proffered herds, / have enough, my brother ; and, with the brag- 
ging Pharisee, can boast of what he is not, and of what lie is ; of 
what he hath, of what he doth ; admiring his own nothing, and 
not caring to seek for more, because he thinks he hath all : this 
fond justiciary can overdo his duty, and supererogate ; contemn- 
ing the poverty of souls better furnished than his own, and laying 
his merits in the dish of the Almigiity. On the other side, there 
is an humble soul, that is secretly rich in all spiritual endow- 
ments, full of knowledge, abounding in grace, which, out of the 
true poverty of spirit, undervalues himself, and makes no show of 
aught but a bemoaned disabihty ; as we have seen those grounds 
■wherein the richest mines are treasured bewray nothing but 
barrenness in their outside. O my soul, what estimation soever 
others may set upon thee, thou art conscious enough of thy own 
wants : be thankful for the little thou hast, and abased for the 
much thou lackest ; and if thou wilt needs be advancino; thyself 
above others, let it be in the contestation of thy greater humble- 
ness and lower dejection : thy grace shall be no less because thou 
thinkest it so, but shall rather multiply by a modest diminution. 
And, blessed Lord, thou who resistest the proud and givest 
grace to the humble, give me more humility, that I may receive 
more grace from thee : and thou, whose gracious rain shelves 



— LIV.] Self-Confere7ices. 67 

down from the steep mountains and sweetly drenches the liumblo 
valleys, depress thou my heart more and more with true lowli- 
ness of spirit ; that the showers of thy heavenly grace may soak 
into it, and make it more fruitful in all good affections and all holy 
obedience. 

LIIl. — The Happiest Society. 

I find, O Lord, some holy men, that have gone aside from the 
world into some sohtary wilderness, that they might have their 
full scope of enjoying thee freely, without any secular avocations ; 
who, no doubt, improved their perfect leisure to a great entire- 
ness of conversation with thee. Surely I could easily admire the 
report of their holiness, and emulate their mortified retiredness, 
if I did not hear them say, The wolf dwells in the wood, and that 
they could as soon leave themselves as the world behind them. 
There is no desert so wild, no mountains or rock so crao-o-y, 
wherein I would not gladly seek thee, my God, and which I 
would not willingly climb up to find thee, if I could hope that 
sohtude would yield a spiritual advantage of more enjoying thee : 
but, alas ! I find our weak powers are subject to an unavoidable 
lassitude ; and we can no more contemplate always those divine 
objects than our bodily eyes are able to fix themselves on the body 
of the sun in his brightest splendour : so as, if our minds should 
not be sometimes taken off with a safe variety of cogitations, we 
should be overwhelmed with thy glory, and with too much light 
blinded. By this means it comes to pass, that these small inter- 
spirations set an edge upon our reassumed speculations and re- 
newed devotions ; although also., in the mean time, I should hate 
all secular diversions, if they should take thee for a moment quite 
out of my sight ; if I did not find that I may refer them to thee, 
and enjoy thee in them. God, do thou so fix my soul upon 
thee, that whatever occasion shall take me up, I may never be 
out of thy blessed society ; and make me so insensible of the noise 
of the world, that even in the midst of the market I may be still 
alone with thee. 

LIV. — Honey from the Rock. 

God, thou didst miraculously refresh thy murmuring Israel 
of old with water out of the rock in that dry wilderness ; and 
now I hear thee say, If they had hearkened to thy voice, and 
walked in thy ways, with honey out of the rock thou wouldest 
have satisfied them. Psalm Ixxxi. 1 6. Lo, that which thou wouldest 
have done to thine ancient people, if they had obeyed thee, thou 

F 2 



68 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy LV — 

hast abundantly performed to thine evangelical Israel; with 
honey out of the rock hast thou satisfied them : the Kock that 
followed thorn was Christ my Saviour, i Cor. x. 4. Lo, out of 
this Rock hath flowed that honey whereby our souls are satis- 
fied. Out of his side, saith the evangelist, came ivater and blood. 
This Rock of our salvation affordeth both what Israel had and 
miglit have had. Surely, my God, there can be no honey so 
sweet as the effect of the precious blood of my Saviour to the 
soul of the believer : by that blood we have eternal redemption 
from death, and remission of all our sins, Heb. ix. 1 2 ; Eph. i. 7 : 
by that blood are we justified in the sight of our God, and saved 
from the wratli to come, Rom. v. 9 : by that blood we have our 
peace made in heaven, and are fully reconciled to our God, Col. 
i. 20 : by that blood we are cleansed and purged from all our 
iniquity, Heb. ix. 22 : by that blood we are sanctified from our 
corruptions, Heb. xiii. 12; 1 Pet. i. 2 : by that blood we receive 
 the promises and possessions of an eternal inheritance, Heb. ix. 15. 
O the spiritual honey so sweet, that the material honey is but 
bitterness to it ! Jonathan of old did but dip his spear in the 
honey of the wood, and but with one lick of that sweet moisture 
had his eyes cleared and his spirits revived, i Sam. xiv. 29. 
God, let me but taste and see how sweet the Lord Jesus is, in all 
his gracious promises, in all his merciful and real performances, I 
shall need no more to make me happy. Thy Solomon bids me to 
eat honey, Prov. xxiv. 13. Lo, this is the honey that I desire 
to eat of: give me of this honey, and I shall receive both clear- 
ness to my eyes and vigour of my spirits, to the foiling of all my 
spiritual enemies. This is not the honey whereof I am bidden 
not to eat too much, Prov. xxv. 16. No, Lord, I can never eat 
enough of this celestial honey : here I cannot surfeit ; or, if I 
could, this surfeit would be my health. God, give me still 
enough of this honey out of the Rock ; so shall my soul live, and 
bless thee, and be blessed of thee. 

LV. — Sure Earnest. 
my God, what a comfortable assurance is this which thou 
hast given to my soul ! Thou hast, in thy great mercy, promised 
and agreed to give me heaven ; and now, because thou dost not 
put rac into a present possession, thou hast given me earnest of 
my future inheritance, Eph. i. 14 : and this earnest is that good 
Spirit of thine, which thou hast graciously put into my soul. 



— LVI.] Self-Conferences. 69 

Even we men, whose style is deceitful upon the balance, think 
ourselves sure, when, in civil transactions, we have received an 
earnest of the bargain; and much more, when we have taken 
that small piece of coin as part of the bargained payment : how 
then can I fear thee to fail, my God, whose title is faithful and 
true; whose word is Yea and Amen? It is ordinary with the 
world to cheat my soul with fair promises and faithless engage- 
ments of yielding me those contentments which it neither can 
nor meant to perform ; but for thee, O Lord, heaven and earth 
shall pass away, hut not one jot of thy word shall pass unful- 
filled, Matth. xxiv. ^^. Hadst thou then but given me that word 
of thine, I durst have set my soul upon it with all firm confi- 
dence ; but now that thou hast seconded thy word with thy earnest, 
what place can be left for my doubt ? What then, what is it that 
thou canst stick at, my soul ? Canst thou make question of the 
truth of the earnest ? thou knowest that thou canst not : the 
stamp is too well known to be disdoubted : the impressions are 
full and inimitable : this seal cannot be counterfeit : the graces 
of the Spirit, which thou hast received, thou feelest to be true 
and real : thou findest in thyself a faith, though weak, yet sin- 
cere; and unfeigned repentance, joined with an hearty detestation 
of all thy sins ; a fervent love of that infinite goodness that hath 
remitted them ; a conscionable care to avoid them ; a zealous 
desire to be approved to God in all thy ways : flesh and blood 
cannot have wrought these graces in thee : it is only that good 
Spirit of thy God which hath thus sealed thee to the day of re- 
demption. Walk on, therefore, my soul, confidently and cheer- 
fully in the strength of this assurance, and joyfully expect the 
full accomplishment of this happy contract from the sure hands of 
thy God : let no temptation stagger thee in the comfortable reso- 
lutions of thy future glory; but say boldly, with that holy pa- 
triarch, Lord, I have waited for thy salvation. 

LVI. — Heavenly Manna. 
Victory itself is the great reward of our fight ; but what is it, 
O God, that thou promisest to give us as the reward of our vic- 
tory ? even the hidden manna : surely, were not this gift exceed- 
ing precious, thou wouldest not reserve it for the remuneration of 
so glorious a conquest. Behold that material and visible manna, 
which thou sentest down from heaven to stop the mouth of mur- 
muring Israel, perished in their use ; and if it were reserved but 



70 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy LVII — 

to the next day, putrefied, and, instead of nourishing, annoyed 
them : but the hidden manna, that was laid up in the ark, was 
incorruptible, as a lasting monument of thy power and mercy to 
thy people. But now^ alas ! what is become both of that manna 
and that ark? Both are vanished, having passed through the 
devouring jaws of time into mere forgetfulness. It is the true 
spiritual manna that came down from the highest heaven, and, 
ascending thither again, is hidden there, in the glorious ark of 
eternity, that thou wilt give to thy conqueror : that is it which, 
being participated of here below, nourisheth us to eternal life ; and 
being communicated to us above, is the full consummation of that 
blessed life and glory. give me so to figlit, that I may over- 
come ; that so overcoming, I may be feasted with this manna. 
Thou that art, and hast given me thyself, the spiritual manna, 
which I have fed on by faith ; and the symbolical manna, whereof 
I have eaten sacramentally ; give me of that heavenly manna 
whereof I shall partake in glory. It is yet an hidden manna., hid 
from the eyes of the world ; yea, in a sort, from our own ; hid ia 
light inaccessible : for, our life is hid with Christ in God, Col. 
iii. 3, but shall then be fully revealed : for it shall then not only 
cover the face of the earth round about the tents of Israel, but 
spread itself over the face of the whole heaven : yea, fill both 
heaven and earth. I well thought, my God, that if heaven 
could afford any thing more precious than other, thou wouldest 
lay it up for thy victor : for it is an hard service, that thy poor 
infantry here upon earth are put unto, to conflict Avith so mighty, 
so malicious, so indefatigable enemies ; and therefore the reward 
must be so much tlie greater as the warfare is more difficult. O 
do thou, who art the great Lord of hosts, give me courage to 
fight, perseverance in fighting, and power to overcome all my 
spiritual enemies ; that I may receive from thee this hidden 
manna, that my soul may live for ever, and may for ever bless 
thee. 

LVII. — The Hearths Treasure. 

It is a sure word of thine, Saviour, that where our treasure 
is, tliere our hearts will be also ; neither can we easily know 
where to find our hearts, if our treasure did not discover them. 
Now, Lord, where is my treasure 'i Sureh^, I am not worthy to 
be owned of thee, if my treasure be any where but in heaven: 
my lumber and luggage may be here on earth, but my treasure 
is above : tliere thou hast laid up for me the richest of thy mer- 



— LVIIL] Self-Conferences. 71 

cies, even my eternal salvation. Yea, Lord, what is my richest 
treasure, but thyself; in Avhom all the treasures of wisdom and 
knowledge, yea of infinite glory, are laid up, for all thine? All 
things that this world can afford me are but mere pelf in compa- 
rison of this treasure ; or if the earth could yield aught that is 
precious, yet I cannot call that treasure. Treasure implies both 
price and store of the dearest commodities : never so great 
abundance of base things cannot make a treasure ; neither can 
some few pieces of the richest metals be so accounted ; but where 
there is a large congestion of precious jewels and metals, there 
only is treasure. If any at all, surely very little, and mean, is the 
wealth which I can promise myself here : perhaps some brass 
farthing, or light and counterfeit coin ; mere earthly dross, which 
may load, but cannot enrich my soul. My only true riches are 
above, with thee ; and where, then, should my heart be but there ? 
My hand and my brain too must necessarily be sometimes here 
below ; but my heart shall be still with my treasure in heaven. 
It is wont to be said, that however the memory of old age is 
short, yet that no old man ever forgot where he laid up his 
treasure. God, let not that celestial treasure which thou hast 
laid up for me be at any time out of my thoughts : let my eye 
be ever upon it; let my heart long for the full possession of it; 
and so joy in the assured expectation of it, that it may disrelish 
all the contentments, and contemn all the crosses, which this 
world can afford me. 

LVIIL — The Narrow Way. 
O Saviour, I hear thee say, / am the way, the truth, and the 
life; and yet again, thou, who art Truth itself, tellest me, that 
the way is narrow and the gate strait that leadeth unto life. 
Sui'ely thou, who art the living way, art exceeding large ; so 
wide, that all the world of believers enter into life by thee only : 
but the way of our walk towards thee is strait and narrow. Not 
but that thy commandment in itself is exceeding broad. Psalm 
cxix. 96 : for, Lord, how fully comprehensive it is of all moral 
and holy duties ! and what gracious latitude hast thou given us 
in it of our obedience ! and how favourable indulgence and re- 
mission, in case of our failings ! but narrow, in respect of the 
weakness and insufficiency of our obedience : it is our wretched 
infirmity that straitens our way to thee. Lo, heaven, which is 
thy all-glorious mansion, when we are once entered into it, how 
infinitely large and spacious it is ! even this lower contignation of 



72 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy LIX — 

it, at how marvellous distance it archeth in tliis globe of aii' and 
earth and waters ! and how is that again surrounded with several 
heights of those lightsome regions, unmeasurable for their glo- 
rious dimensions ! But the heaven of heavens, the seat of the 
blessed, is yet so much larger, as it is higher in place and more 
eminent in glory : yet thou wouldest have the way to it narrow, 
and the gate of it strait. And even thus it pleaseth thee to 
ordain, in the dispensation of all thine inferior blessings : Learning 
dwells far within; but the entrance is strait, through study, 
watching, bending of brains, wearing of spirits : the house of 
Honour is sumptuous and goodly within ; but the gate is strait 
that leads into it ; which is through danger, attendance, plots of 
emulation : Wealth hath large elbowroom of lodging ; but the 
gate is strait ; hard labour, careful thrift, racking of thoughts, 
painful adventures. How much more wouldest thou have it thus 
in the best of all blessings, the eternal fruition of heaven ! And 
why is this way narrow, but because it is untracked and untrod- 
den ? if I may not rather say, the way is untracked, and found 
by few, because it is narrow, and not easy to tread in. Surely 
grace is the way to glory ; and that path is not for every foot ; 
the straiter and narrower it is, my God, the more let me strive 
and shoulder to enter into it. What vain quarrels do we daily 
hear of for the way ; but, Lord, enable me to strive for this way, 
even to blood. And if thou hast been pleased to set me a deep 
way or a rough way, through many tribulations, to that happy 
and eternal life, let me pass it with all cheerful resolution. How 
oft have 1 not grudged to go a foul way to a friend^s house, 
where I knew my entertainment kind and cordial ! let me not 
think much to come to those thy everlasting mansions of bliss 
through tears and blood : the end shall make an abundant amends 
for the way : if I suffer with thee, I shall reign with thee. 

LIX. — God's Various Proceedings. 
AVhat strange varieties do I find in the workino;s of God with 
man ! one, where I find him gently and plausibly inviting men to 
their conversion ; another, where I find him frighting some others 
to heaven : some, he trains up in a goodly education, and, without 
any eminent change, calls them forth to an exemplary profession 
of his name ; some others, he chooseth out of a life notoriously 
lewd to be the great patterns of a sudden reformation : one, that 
was only formal in his devotion, without any true life of grace, is. 



— LX,] Self- Conferences. 73 

upon a grievous sickness, brought to a lively sense of godliness ; 
another comes to God's house with a purpose to sleep or scoff, 
and, through the secret operation of God's Spirit working with 
his word, returns full of true compunction of heart, with tears in 
his eyes, and resolutions of present amendment of life : one, that 
was proud of his own righteousness, is suffered to fall into some 
foul sin, which shames him before men, and is thus brought down 
to an humble acknowledgment of his own frailty ; another, that 
was cast doAvn with a sad despair of God's mercy, is raised up by 
the fall of an unbroken glass, or by some comfortable dream, or 
by the seasonable word of a cheerful friend : one is called at the 
sixth hour ; another, not till the eleventh : one, by fair and pro- 
bable means ; another, by contraries ; so as even the work of 
Satan himself hath been made the occasion of the conversion of 
his soul. God, thy ways are infinite, and past finding out. It 
is not for us to prescribe thee what to do, but humbly to adore 
thee in what thou doest. Far be it from me, so to cast mvself 
upon thy all- working providence as to neglect the ordinary means 
of my salvation. Enable me cheerfully to endeavour what thou 
requirest, and then take what way thou pleasest ; so that thou 
bringest me to the end of my hope, the salvation of my soul. 

LX. — The Waking Guardian. 
It is a true word which the Psalmist said of thee, O God : 
thou, that keepest Israel, neither slumberest nor sleej)est, Psalm 
cxxi. 4. Fond tyrants think that thou winkest at their cruel per- 
secutions of thy Church, because thou dost not speedily execute 
vengeance upon them ; whereas, if the fault were not in their 
eyes, they should see thine wide open, and bent upon them for 
their just destruction : only, thou thinkest fit to hold thy hand 
for a time from the infliction of judgment, till the measure of 
their iniquity be full ; and then, they shall feel to their cost that 
thou sawest all their secret plots and conspiracies against thine 
Israel. The time was, Saviour, when^ in the days of thy hu- 
man infirmity, thou sleptest in the stern of the ship, on a pillow, 
when the tempest raged and the waves swelled ; yet even then, 
when thy disciples awoke thee, and said, Lord, save us, ive perish, 
thou rebukedst them sharply with, Why are ye fearful, ye of 
little faith ? Matth. viii. 24 — 26 ; Mark iv. 37 — 40; Luke viii. 
23 — 25. Their danger was apparently great : but yet thou 
tellest them their fear was causeless, and their faith weak, that 



74 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy LXI — 

they could not assure themselves that thy presence, though sleep- 
ing, was a sufficient preservative against the fury of winds and 
waters : how much more now, that being in the height of thy 
heavenly glory, and ever intentively vigilant for the safeguard of 
thy chosen ones, may we rest secure of thy blessed protection 
and our sure indemnity ! God, do thou keep my eyes ever 
open, that I may still wait upon thee, for thy gracious tuition 
and the merciful accomphshment of thy salvation. Thou seest I 
have to do with those enemies that are never but waking, never 
but seeking all advantages against my soul : what can they do, 
when thine eye is ever over me for good ? then, let mine eyes 
be ever unto thee, O God my Lord : in thee let me still put my 
trust : so shalt thou keep me from the snares that they have laid 
for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity, Psalm cxli. 8, 9. 

LXI. — The Sting of Guiltiness. 

Guiltiness can never think itself sure, if there were no fiends 
to torment it: like a bosom-devil, it would ever torment itself: 
no guard can be so sure, no fort so strong, as to secure it from 
terrors. The first murderer, after his bloody fratricide, when 
there is no mention of any man beside his father upon earth, 
yet can say. It shall come to pass, that every one that fiadeth me 
shall slay me, Gen. iv. 14 : and I marvel that he added not, " If 
none else will do it, I shall do that deadly office to myself." He 
was sure he could meet with none but brethren or nephews ; and 
even the face of those was now dreadful to him : he that had 
been so cruel to him that had lain in the same womb with him- 
self, fears, that no nearness of blood can sliiekl him from the 
violence of the next man. Conscience, when once exasperated, 
needs not stay for an accuser, a witness, a solicitor to enforce the 
evidence, a judge, but itself alone acts all these pa,rts, and oft- 
times also the executioner's to boot. It was a just question of 
the wisest of men, A tuounded spirit ivho can bear ? but there 
are divers and different degrees of the wounds of spirit : all ai-e 
painful, some mortal. As in the body, there may be some wounds 
in the outward and fleshly part which have more pain than peril, 
but those of the principal and vital parts are not more dolorous 
than dangerous, and often deadly ; so it is in the soul : there are 
wounds of the inferior and affective faculties, as grief for crosses, 
vexation for disappointment of hopes, pangs of anger for wrongs 
received, which may be cured with seasonable remedies ; but the 



_^ — LXIL] Self- Conferences. 75 

wounds of conscience, inflicted by the sting of some heinous sin, 
which hes belking within us, carries in it horror, despair, death. 
God, keep me from blood-guiltiness, and from all crying and 
presumptuous sins ; but, if ever my frailty should bo so foully 
tainted, do thou so work upon my soul, as that m}' repentance 
may walk in equal paces witli my sin, ere it can aggravate itself 
by continuance. Apply thy sovereign plaster to my soul while 
the wound is green, and suffer it not; to fester inwardly through 
any impenitent delay. 

LXII. — Beneficial Want. 

It is just with thee, God, when thou seest us grow wanton, 
and unthankfully neglective of thy blessings, to withdraw them 
from us, that by the want of them we may feel both our unre- 
garded obligations and the defects of our duty : so wo have seen 
the nurse, when the child begins to play with the dug, to put up 
the breast out of sight. I should not acknowledge how precious 
a favour health is, if thou didst not sometimes interchange it with 
sickness ; nor how much I am bound to thee for my limbs, if I 
had not sometimes a touch of lameness. Thirst gives better rehsh 
to the drink ; and liunger is the best sauce to our meat. Nature 
must needs affect a continuance of her welfare, neither is any 
thing more grievous to her than these cross interceptions of her 
contentments : but thou, who art Wisdom itself, knowest how fit 
it is for us, both to smart for our neglect of thy familiar mercies, 
and to have thy blessings more endeared to us by a seasonable 
discontinuance. Neither dost thou want to deal otherwise in the 
managing of thy spiritual mercies. If thy Spouse, the faithful 
soul, shall, being pampered with prosperity, begin to grow secure 
and negligent, so as at the first knock of her beloved she rise 
not up to open to him, but suffers his head to be filled with dew 
and his locks with the drops of the night, she soon finds her 
beloved withdrawn and gone ; she may then seek him and not 
find him ; she may call, and receive no answer ; she may seek 
him about the streets, and, instead of finding him, lose her veil, 
and meet with blows and wounds from the watchmen, Cant. v. 
2 — 7. God, keep thou me from being restive with ease ; hold 
me in a continual tenderness of heart ; continue me in a thankful 
and awful use of all thy favours : but if at any time thou seest 
me decline to a careless obduration, and to a disrespective forget- 
fulness of thy mercies, do thou so chastise me with the fatherly 



76 Self -Conferences. [Soliloquy LXIII — 

hand of thy afflictions, and so work me to a gracious use of thy 
desertions^ that my soul may seek thee with more vigour of affec- 
tions, and may recover thee with more sensible comfort. 

LXIII. — Interchange of Conditions. 
It is not for nothing, my God, that thou hast protracted my 
time so long, and hast given me so large experience of thy most 
wise and holy dealing with myself and others. Doubtless it is 
that I might see and feel and observe, and teach the gracious 
changes of thy carriage towards thy poor sinful creatures upon 
earth. Thou dost not hold us always under the rod, though we 
w^ell deserve a perpetual correction ; as considering our miserable 
impotence, and aptness to an heartless dejection. Thou dost not 
always keep our hearts raised up to the jollity of a prosperous 
condition ; as knowing our readiness to presume, and to be car- 
ried away with a false confidence of our unmovableness : but 
graciously interchangest thy favours with our sufferings. When 
thou seest us ready to faint, and to be discouraged with our ad- 
versity, thou takest off thy hand, and givest us a comfortable 
respiration from our miseries : when thou seest us puffed up with 
the vain conceit of our own worth or success, thou takest us down 
with some heavy cross. When thou findest us overlaid with an 
unequal match, and ready to be foiled in the fight, thou givest us 
breath, and puttest new strength into our arms, and new courage 
into our hearts : when thou findest us insolent with our victory, 
thou shamest us by an unexpected discomfiture. And as for the 
outward estate of tlie nations and kingdoms of the earth, thou 
whirlest them about in a perpetual yet constant vicissitude : peace 
breeds plenty ; plenty, wantonness and pride ; pride, animosity ; 
from thence follows war; war produces vastation and want; 
poverty causeth industry ; and, when nothing is left to strive for, 
peace ; an industrious peace brings plenty again : and, in this 
gyre, thou hast ordained the world still to turn about. Be not 
too much moved then, O my soul, when thou findest thyself hard 
pressed with afflictions and conflicted with strong temptations ; 
but bear up constantly, in the strength of thy faith, as being as- 
sured, that having rid out this storm, thou shalt be blessed with 
an happy calm : neither be thou lifted up too much, when thou 
findest thyself carried on with a fair gale of prosperity ; since 
thou knowest not what tempests may suddenly arise, and many a 
hopeful vessel hath been sunk in sight of the port. And when 



— LXIV.] Self- Conferences. 77 

thou seest the world everywhere full of woful combustions, be not 
overmuch dismayed with the sight and sense of these public cala- 
mities ; but wait patiently upon that Divine Providence, which, 
after those revolutions of change, shall happily reduce all things 
to their determinate posture. To which purpose, O God, do 
thou fix my heart firmly upon thee : do thou keep me from the 
evil of prosperity, from dejectedness in aflliction, from the pre- 
valence of temptation, from misprision of thy providence. Work 
me to that due temper which thy Solomon hath prescribed me — 
In the day of prosperity he joyful, hut in the day of adversity 
consider : God also hath set the one over against the other, to 
the end that man should find nothing after him, Eccles. vii.14. 

LXIV.— T/te Rule of Devotion. 
Thy will, God, as it is always holy, so, in what thou hast 
decreed to do with us, is secret, and in what thou wouldest have 
us do to thee, is revealed. It is thy revealed will that must regu- 
late both our actions and our prayers. It may be that I may 
lawfully sue to thee for what thou hast decreed not to grant : as 
Samuel ceased not to pray for thy favour to that Saul Avhom thou 
hadst rejected ; and many an Israehte prayed for rain in that 
three years and an half wherein thou hadst commanded the 
clouds to make good the prophecy of thine Elias; yea, thine 
holy apostle prayed thrice to have the messenger of Satan taken 
oflF from him, and heard no answer, but. My grace is sufiicientfor 
thee, 2 Cor. xii. 9. So, Lord, we pray for the removal of thy 
judgments from this sinful and deplored nation, which, for aught 
we know, and have cause to fear, thou hast decreed to ruin and 
devastation ; and many a good soul prays for a comfortable sense 
of thy favour, whom thou thinkest fit to keep down for the time 
in a sad desertion ; and I, thy unworthy servant, may pray to be 
freed from those temptations wherewith thou seest it fit that my 
faith should be still exercised. O God, give me the grace to 
follow thy revealed will, and to submit myself to thy secret. 
AVhat thou hast commanded, I know I may do ; what thou 
hast promised, I know I may trust to ; what thou hast in a 
generahty promised to do, may, in some particular cases, by 
the just decree of thy secret counsel, be otherwise determined. 
If I ask what thou hast decreed to do, I know I cannot but 
obtain ; if I ask what thou hast warranted, notwithstanding the 
particular exception of thy secret will, though I receive it not, 



78 Self -Conferences. [Soliloquy LXV — 

yet I receive not pardon only, but acceptation. God, give me 
grace to steer myself and my prayers by thy revealed will, and 
humbly to stoop to what the event shows to have been thy secret 

will. 

LXV. — HelVs Triumph. 

Thou hast told us, Saviour, that there is joy in the presence 
of thine angels for a sinner's repentance, Luke xv. lo. Those 
blessed spirits are so far from envying our happiness, that, as they 
endeavour it here, so they congratulate it in heaven ; and we well 
know that these good spirits do not more rejoice in the conversion 
of a sinner, than the evil spirits do in the miscarriage of a convert. 
The course of the holy obedience of thy servants here is doubt- 
less a pleasing object to thine angels ; neither are those mahgnant 
spirits less pleased with the wicked practices of their vassals ; but 
the joy arises to both from the contrary condition of those parties 
over which they have prevailed. The allegiance of a good subject, 
though well accepted, yet is no news to a gracious sovereign ; 
but the coming in of some great rebel is happy tidings at the 
court : on the contrary, where there is a rivality of sovereignty, 
for a professed enemy to do hostile actions is no other than could 
be expected ; but for a subject, or a domestic servant, to be drawn 
into the conspiracy, is not more advantage than joy to the intruder. 
God, thou hast mercifully called me out of the world to a pro- 
fession of thy name : I know what eyes those envious spirits have 
ever upon me ; do thou lead me in thy righteousness because 
of mine enemies, Psalm v. 8. If thine angels have found cause to 
joy in my conversion, do thou keep me from making music in 
hell by my miscarriage. 

LXVL — Dumb Homage. 
How officious, God, do I see thy poor dumb creatures to us ! 
how do they fawn or crouch as they see us affected ! how do they 
run and fetch and carry, and draw at our command ! how do 
they bear our stripes with a trembling unresistance ! how readily 
do they spend their strength, and live theirs in our service ! how 
patiently do they yield us their milk and their fleeces for our 
advantage, and lie equally still to be shorn or slain at our plea- 
sure! expecting nothing from us, in the mean time, but a bare 
sustenance, which if it be denied them they do not foil furiously 
upon their cruel masters, but meekly bemoan themselves in their 
brutish language, and languish and die : if granted them, they 



— LXVIL] Self -Conferences. 79 

are fattened for our use. I am ashamed, God, I am ashamed 
to see these thy creatures so obsequiously phant unto me, while I 
consider my disposition and deportment towards thee my Creator. 
Alas, Lord, what made the difference betwixt me and them but 
thy mere good pleasure ? thou mightest have made them rational, 
and have exchanged my reason for their brutality. They are my 
fellows by creation^ and owe both their being and preservation to 
the same hand with myself. Thou art the absolute Lord of both, 
to whom I must be accountable for them ; they are mine only by 
a hmited substitution from thee ; why then should they be more 
obedient to my will than I am to thine, since they have only 
sense to lead them in their war, I have both reason and faith to 
teach me my duty ? Had I made them, I could but require of 
them their absolute submission ; why should I then exact of them 
more than I am ready to perform unto thee ? God, thou that 
hast put them under my hand, and me under thy own; as thou 
hast made me their master for command, so let me make them my 
masters to teach me obedience. 

LXVIL — Indifferency of Events. 
Thou givest us daily proofs, O God, of the truth of that obser- 
vation of wise Solomon, that all things come alike to all; and 
that 710 man knows love or hatred hy all that is before them, 
Eccles. ix. I, 2. In these outward things, thy dearest friends have 
not fared better than thine enemies ; thy greatest enemies have 
not suffered more than thy beloved children. When therefore I 
look abroad, and see with what heavy afflictions thou art pleased 
to exercise thy best favourites upon earth, I cannot but stand 
amazed to see that horrible torments of all kinds have been 
undergone by thy most precious martyrs, whose patience hath 
overcome the violence of their executioners, and to see those 
extreme tortures which some of thy faithful servants have en- 
dured in the beds of their sickness : one, torn and drawn together 
with fearful convulsions ; another, shrieking under the painful 
girds of an unremovable stone: one, wrung in his bowels with 
pangs of cholic, and turning of guts ; another, possessed with a 
raging .gout in all his limbs ; one, whose bladder, after a painful 
incision, is ransacked ; another, whose leg or arm is cut off to 
prevent a mortal gangrene : I cannot but acknowledge how just 
it might be in thee, God, to mix the same bitter cup for me ; 
and how merciful it is that, knowing my weakness, thou hast 



80 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy LXVIII. 

forborne hitherto to load me with so sad a burden. What thou 
hast in thine eternal counsel determined to lay upon me, thou 
only knowest. If thou be pleased to continue thy gracious in- 
dulgence to me still, make me truly thankful to thee for health 
and ease, as the greatest of thy outward favours ; but let me not 
build upon them as the certain evidences of thy better mercies : 
and if thou think fit to interchange them with the vicissitude of 
sickness and pain, let me not misconstrue thy severe chastise- 
ments as arguments of thy displeasure. But still teach me to fear 
thee in my greatest prosperity, and to love thee in my greatest 
sufferings, and to adore thine infinite wisdom, justice, and mercy 

in both. 

LXVIII. — The Transcendent Love. 

How justly do I marvel, God, to see what strength of natural 
affection thou hast wrought in poor brute creatures towards their 
masters, and towards their own mates, towards their dams and 
their young ! We have plentiful instances of those whom death 
could not separate from their beloved guardians : some, that have 
died for their masters ; some, with them ; some, that have fear- 
lessly hazarded their own lives for the preservation of their young 
ones ; some, that have fed their aged dams with the food which 
they have spared from their own maws. Amongst the rest, how 
remarkable is that comparison of thine, Saviour, wherein thou 
wert pleased to set forth thy tender care of thine Israel by the 
resemblance of an hen gathering her chickens under her wings ! 
Matt, xxiii. 37. How have I seen that poor fowl, after the 
patience of a painful hatching, clucking her little brood together ; 
and, when she hath perceived the puttock hovering over her 
head, in a varied note calling them hastily under the wing of her 
protection, and there covertly hiding them, not from the talons 
only, but from the eye of that dangerous enemy, till the peril hath 
been fully over ! after which, she calls them forth to their liberty 
and repast, and with many a careful scrape discovers to them 
such grains of food as may be fit for them, contenting herself to 
crave for them with neglect of her own sustenance. God, thou 
who hast wrought in thy silly creatures such an high measure of 
indulgence and dearncss of respect towards their tender brood, 
how infinite is thy love and compassion towards the children of 
men, the great masterpiece of thy creation ! How past the ad- 
miration of men and angels is that transcendent proof of thy 
divine love in the more than marvellous work of our redemption ! 



— LXIX.] Self- Conferences. 81 

How justly glorifiable is thy name in the gracious and sometimes 
miraculous preservation of thy children! in the experience whereof, 
if I forbear to magnify thee, or dare not to trust thee, how can I 
be but unworthy to be owned of thee or blessed by thee ? 

LXIX. — Choice of Seasons. 

How regularly, God, hast thou determined a set season for 
all thy creatures, both for their actions and their use ! The stork 
in the heaven, saith thy prophet Jeremy, knoiveth her appointed 
times ; and tlie turtle and the crane and the swalloiv observe the 
time of their coming, Jer. viii. 7. Who have seen the storks before 
the calends of August, or a swallow in the winter? Who hath 
heard the nightingale in the heat of harvest, or the bittern bear- 
ing her bass in the coldest months ? Yea, the fishes in the sea 
know and observe their due seasons, and present us with their 
shoals only when they are wholesome and useful; the herring 
doth not furnish our market in the spring, nor the salmon or 
mackerel in the winter. Yea, the very flies both have and keep 
their days appointed : the silkworm never looks forth of that little 
cell of her conception till the mulberry puts forth the leaves for 
their nourishment; and who hath ever seen a butterfly or an 
hornet in winter ? jea, there are flies, we know, appropriate to 
their own months, from which they vary not. Lastly, how plain 
is this in all the several varieties of trees, flowers, herbs ! The 
almond tree looks out first, the mulberry last, of all other : the 
tulip and the rose, and all other the sweet ornaments of the earth, 
are punctual in their growth and fall. But as for man, O God, 
thou hast in thy infinite wisdom endued him with that power of 
reason whereby he may make choice of the fittest seasons of all 
his actions. Thou that hast appointed a time for every purpose 
under heaven, Eccles. iii. i, hast given him wit to find and observe 
it. Even lawful acts, unseasonably done, may turn evil ; and acts 
indifferent, seasonably performed, may prove good and laudable. 
The best improvement of morality or civility may shame us, if 
due time be not as well regarded as substance. Only grace, piety, 
true virtue, can never be unseasonable. There are no seasons in 
eternity : there shall be one uniform and constant act of glorifying 
thee ; thy angels and saints praise thee above without change or 
intermission, the more we can do so on earth, the nearer shall we 
approach to those blessed spirits. O God, let my heart be wholly 

s (Ecolampad. in loc. Jerem. [Ad Kalendas Augusti non visuntur, &c.] 
BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. G 



82 Self- Conferences. [Soliloquy LXXI — 

taken up evermore with an adoration of thine infinite Majesty, 
and let my mouth be ever sounding forth of thy praise ; and let 
the llosannahs and Hallelujahs which I begin here, know no 
measure but eternity. 

LXX. — The Happy return Home. 
Every creature naturally aifects a return to the original whence 
it first came. The pilgrim, though faring well abroad, yet hath 
a lono-ino- homewai*d: fountains and rivers run back with what 
speed they may to the sea, whence they were derived : all com- 
pound bodies return to their first elements : the vapours, rising up 
from the earth and Avaters, and condensed into clouds, fall down 
again to the same earth whence they were exhaled : this body that 
wo bear about us returns at last to that dust whereof it was 
framed. And why then, my soul, dost not thou earnestly de- 
sire to return home to the God that made thee ? Thou knowest 
thy original is heavenly, why are not thy affections so ? What 
canst thou find here below worthy to either withdraw or detain 
thee from those heavenly mansions ? Thou art here in a region of 
sin, of misery and death : glory waits for thee above : fly tlien, O 
my soul, fly hence to that blessed immortality, not as yet, in thy 
dissolution, for which thou must wait on the pleasure of thy dear 
Maker and Redeemer : yet in thy thoughts, in thy desires and 
afiections, soar thou up thither, and converse there with that blessed 
God and Father of Spirits, with those glorious orders of angels, 
and with the souls of just men made perfect: and if the necessity 
of these bodily aifaii^ must needs draw thee off for a time, let it 
be not without reluctation and hearty unwillingness, and with an 
eager appetite of quick return to that celestial society. It will not 
be long ere thou shalt be blessed with a free and uninterrupted 
fruition of that glorious eternity ; in the mean time, do thou pre- 
possess it in thy heavenly dispositions, and, contemning this earth, 
wherewith thou art clogged, aspire to thy heaven, and be happy. 

LXXI. — Tlie Confinements of Age. 
Dost thou not observe, my soul, how time and age confines 
and contracts, as our bodies, so our desires and motions here upon 
earth, still into narrower compasses? When we are young, the 
world is but little enough for us ; after we have seen our own 
island, we affect to cross the seas, and to climb over Alps and 
Pyrennees, and never think we have roved far enough. When we 



— LXXII.] Self-Conferences. m 

grow ancient, we begin to be well pleased with rest : now, long and 
unnecessary journeys are laid aside : if business call us forth, we 
go, because we must ; as for the visits of friendship, one sun is 
enough to measure them with our returns. And still the older we 
grow, the more we are devoted to our home ; there we are con- 
tent to sit still, and enjoy the thoughts of our youth and former 
experience, not looking farther than a kind neighbourhood. But 
when age hath stiffened our joints and disabled our motions, now 
our home-pastures and our gardens become our utmost boundaries. 
From thence, a few years more confine us to our own floor. Soon 
after that, we are limited to our chamber ; and at last to our chair ; 
then to our bed ; and in fine to our coffin. These natural re- 
strictions, my soul, are the appendences of thy weary partner, 
this earthly body ; but for thee, the nearer thou drawest to thy 
home, the more it concerns thee to be sensible of a blessed en- 
largement of thy estate and affections. Hitherto thou art immured 
in a strait pile of clay ; now, heaven itself shall be but wide enough 
for thee. The world hath hitherto taken thee up, which, though 
large, is yet but finite ; now, thou art upon the enjoying of that 
God who alone is infinite in all that he is. O how inconsiderable 
is the restraint of the worse part in comparison of the absolute 
enlargement of the better ! O my God, whose mercy knows no 
other Hmits than thy essence, work me, in this shutting up of my 
days, to all heavenly dispositions ; that while my outward man is 
so much more lessened as it. draws nearer to the centre of its cor- 
ruption, my spiritual part may be so much more dilated in and 
towards thee, as it approacheth nearer towards the circumference 
of thy celestial glory. 

LXXII. — Sin ivitliout Sense. 

Alas, Lord, how tenderly sensible I am of the least bodily com- 
plaint that can befall me ! If but a tooth begin to ache, or a thorn 
have rankled in my flesh, or but an angry corn vex my toe, how 
am I incessantly troubled with the pain ! how feelingly do 1 be- 
moan myself! how carefully do I seek for a speedy remedy! 
which till I feel, how little relish do I find in my wonted content- 
ment ! But for the better part, which is so much more tender as 
it is more precious, with what patience, shall I call it ? or stupidity, 
do I endure it wounded, were it not for thy great mercy, no less 
than mortally ! Every new sin, how little soever, that I commit, 
fetches blood of the soul : every willing sin stabs it : the continu- 

G 2 



84 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy LXX III — 

ance wherein festers inwardlj^, and, Avithout repentance, kills. O 
God, I desire to be ashamed and humbled under thy hand, for 
this so unjust partiality, which gives me just cause to fear that 
sense hath yet more predominance in me than faith. I do not so 
much sue to thee to make me less sensible of bodily evils, whereof 
yet too deep a sense differs httle from impatience, as to make me 
more sensible of spiritual : let me feel my sin more painful than 
the worst disease, and rather than wilfully sin, let me die. 

LXX III. — The Extremes of Devotion. 
I acknowledge it to be none of thy least mercies, God, that 
thou hast vouchsafed to keep me within the due lines of devotion, 
not suffering me to wander into those two extremes which I see 
and pity in others. Too many there are, that do so content them- 
selves in mere formalities, that they little regard how their heart 
is affected with the matter of their prayers : so have I grieved to 
see poor misdevout souls under the papacy, measuring their orisons, 
not by weight, but by number ; not caring which way their eye 
strayed, so their lips went ; resting well apaid that God un- 
derstood them, though they understood not themselves : too near 
approaching whereunto are a world of well-meaning ignorant souls 
at home, that care only to pray by rote, not without some general 
intentions of piety, but so, as their hearts are httle guilty of the 
motion of their tongues ; who, while they would cloak their care- 
lessness with a pretence of disability of expressing their wants to 
God, might learn, that true sense of need never wanted words 
to crave rehef : every beggar can, with sufficient eloquence, im- 
portune the passenger for his alms ; did they not rather lack an 
heart than a tongue, they could not be defective in bemoaning 
themselves to Heaven for what they lack, especially while we have 
to do with such a God as more esteems broken clauses made up 
with hearty sighs, than all the complements of the most curious 
eloquence in the world. On the other side, there are certain 
zealous devotionists which abhor all set forms and fixed hours of 
invocation, teaching, and so practising, that they may not pray 
but when they feel a strong impulsion of God's Spirit to that holy 
work ; whereupon it hath come to pass, that n-hole days, yea weeks, 
have gone over their heads unblessed by their prayers ; who might 
have taken notice, that under the Law God had his regular course 
of constant hours for his morning and evening sacrifices ; that the 
ancient saints, under the Old Testament, held close to David's 



— LXXIV.] Self-Conferences. 85 

rule, evening, and morning., and at noon, to pray and cry aloud, 
Psalm Iv. 17: so as the very lions could not fright Daniel from his 
task : and even after the vail of the Temple was rent, Peter and 
John went up together to God's house, at the ninth hour, to 
evening prayer, Acts iii. i : yea, what stand ye upon this, when 
the apostle of the Gentiles charges us, to pray continually ? 
1 Thess. V. 17. Not that we should, in the midst of a sensible in- 
disposedness of heart, fall suddenly into a fashionable devotion ; 
but that by holy ejaculations and previous meditation we should 
make way for a feeling invocation of our God, whose ears are 
never but open to our faithful prayers. If we first, though silently, 
pray that we may pray, the fervour of our devotion shall grow 
upon us in praying : these holy waters of the sanctuary, that at 
first did but wet the souls of our feet, shall, in their happy pro- 
cess, rise up to our chins. I thank thee, God, that thou hast 
given me a desire to walk even between these extremities. As I 
would be ever in a prayiiig disposition to thee, so I would not 
willingly break hours with thee : I would neither sleep nor wake 
without praying, but I would never pray without feeling. If my 
heart go not along with forms of words, I do not pray, but babble ; 
and if that be bent upon the matter of my suit, it is all one to 
thee whether the words be my own or borrowed. Let thy good 
Spirit ever teach me to pray, and help me in praying ; let that 
ever make intercessions for me, luith groanings tvhich cannot be 
expressed, Rom. viii. 26 ; and then, if thou canst, send me away 
empty. 

LXXIV.— r/ie Sick Man's Vows. 
The answer was not amiss which Theodoricus bishop of Cologne 
is said to have given to Sigismond the emperor, who, demanding 
how he might be directed the right way to heaven, received 
answer; "If thou Avalk so, as thou promisedst in thy painful fit 
of the stone or gout^." Our extremities commonly render us 
holy, and our pain is prodigal of those vows which our ease is as 
niggardly in performing. The distressed mariner, in the peril of 
a tempest, vows to his saint a taper as big as the mast of his ship ; 
which upon his coming to shore is shrunk into a rush candle. 
There was never a more stifi'necked people than that which should 
have been God's peculiar ; yet, upon every new plague, how de 
they crouch and creep to the power which their murmurs pro- 

•» ^neas Sylv. de Eeb. gest. Alph. [De Dictis et factis Alph. Reg. lib. ii. 
§40-3 



86 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy LXXV — 

yoked ! And we daily see desperation makes those votaries whom 
health dispenseth with as the loosest of libertines. Were it essen- 
tial to prosperity thus to pervert and debauch us, it were enough 
to make a good heart out of love with welfare ; since the pleasure 
and profit of tlic best estate is far too short of recompensing the 
mischief of a depraved jollity: but now the fault is in our own 
wretched indisposition ; the blessing is God's, the abuse is ours. 
Is the sun to be blamed, that the traveller's cloak swelters him 
with heat? is the fruit of the grape guilty of that drunkenness 
which follows upon a sinful excess ? can we not feed on good 
meat without a surfeit ? And Avhose fault is it but ours if we for- 
get the engagements of our sick beds ? Rather than health should 
make us godless, how much better were it for us to be always 
sick ! my God, I do acknowledge and bewail this wretched 
frailty of our corrupt nature : we are not the same men sick 
and whole : we are apt to promise thee fair, and to pay thee 
with disappointment ; and are ready to put off our holy thoughts 
with our biggins. It is thou only that canst remedy this sickness 
of our health, by working us to a constant mortification. O do 
thou ever bless thy servant, either with sanctified crosses or a 
temperate prosperity ! 

LXXV. — The Suggestions of a False Heart. 
Surely, if thousands of souls perish by the flattery of others, 
more perish by their own ; while their natural self-love soothes 
them with plausible but untrue suggestions concerning their 
estate. Is the question concerning grace ? The false heart tells 
a man he is stored to superfluity and excess, when he is indeed 
more bare and beggarly than the proud pastor of Laodicea. Is 
the question of sin ? It proclaims him not innocent only, but a 
saint : it tells him his hands are pure, when he is up to the elbows 
in blood; that his tongue is holy, when it is foul with perjury 
and blasphemy ; that his eye is honest and chaste, when it is full of 
adultery ; that his soul is clean, when it is defiled with abominable 
lusts, or with cruel rancour and malice. Is the question concern- 
ing virtue? It tells a man he is just, when he is all made up of 
rapine and violent oppression ; that he is eminently wise, when 
he hath not wit enough to know himself a fool; that he is free- 
handed and munificent, when he sticks not to rob beggars ; that 
he is piously rehgious, wl-.ile he pulls down churches. Thus is 
the man still hid from himself, and is made to see another in his 



— LXXVL] Self -Conferences. 87 

own skin : he cannot repent, because he thinks himself faultless : 
he cannot amend, because he is ever at the best : his only ease 
and advantage is, that he is carried hoodwinked into hell. If the 
question be concerning some scrupulous act to be done or omitted, 
now self-respect plays its prizes at all weapons : what shifting and 
traversing there is, to avoid the dint of a present danger ! what 
fine colours and witty equivocations doth the soul find out, to 
cozen itself into a safe offence ! If the question be of a sinful a«t 
already committed, what a shuffling there is to face it out by a 
stout justification ! maugre conscience, it was not lawful only, 
but, such as the circumstances were, expedient also : and if it be 
so foul that an apology is too odious, yet an extenuation cannot 
but be admitted ; be it amiss, yet not heinous, not unmeet for 
pardon. One would think hell should have little need of the 
fawning assentation of others when men carry so dangerous para- 
sites in their own bosoms ; but sure, both together must needs 
help to people that region of darkness. Take heed, my soul, 
how thou givest way to these flattering thoughts, whether arising 
from thy own breast or injected by others ; and know, thou art 
never in more danger than when thou art most applauded. Look 
lipon thine estate and actions with unpartial and severe eyes. 
Behold thine own face, not in the false glass of opinion and mer- 
cenary adulation, but in the true and perfect glass of the royal 
law of thy Creator : that shall duly represent unto thee, whether 
the beauty of thy graces or the blemishes of thy manifold imper- 
fections : that alone shall tell thee how much thou art advanced 
in a gracious proficiency, and how shamefully defective thou art 
in Avhat thou oughtest to have attained. Judge of thyself by 
that unfailing rule, and be indifferent what thou art judged of by 

others. 

LXXVL — Sacred Melody. 

What a marvellously cheerful service was that, God, which 
thou requiredst and hadst performed under the Law ! Here was 
not a dumb and silent act in thy sacrifices, a beast bleeding before 
thy altar, and a smoke and flame arising out of it ; hei'e was not 
a cloudy perfume, quietly ascending from the golden altar of thine 
incense ; but here was the merry noise of most melodious music, 
singing of psalms, and sounding of all harmonious instruments. 
The congregation were upon their knees, the Levites upon their 
stage sweetly singing, the priests sounding the trumpets, together 
with cymbals, harps, psalteries, making up one sound in praising 



88 Self -Conferences. [Soliloquy LXXVII — 

and thanking the Lord, 2 Chron. xxix. 25—28; v. 12, 13. Me- 
thinks 1 hear, and am ravished to hear, in some of thy solemn 
dajs, an hundred and twenty of thy priests sounding with trum- 
pets ; thy Levites in greater number singing aloud with the mix- 
ture of their musical instruments ; so as not the temple only, but 
the heaven rings again. And even in thy daily sacrifices, each 
morning and evening, I find an heavenly mirth ; music, if not 
so loud, yet no less sweet and delicate : no fewer than twelve 
Levites might be standing upon the stage every day, singing a 
divine ditty over thy sacrifice ; psalteries, not fewer than two 
nor more than six ; pipes, not fewer than two nor more than 
twelve ; trumpets two at the least, and but one cymbal' : so pro- 
portioned by the masters of thy choir, as those that meant to 
take the heart through the ear. I find where thy holy servants, 
David, Solomon, Hezekiah, (doubtless by thy gracious direction, 
yea, by thy direct command, 2 Chron. xxix. 25 — 28,) both ap- 
pointed and made use of these melodious services : I do not find 
where thou hast forbidden them : this I am sure of, since thou 
art still and ever the same, under both Law and Gospel, that 
thou both requirest and delightest in the cheerful devotions of 
thy servants. If we have not the same sounds with thy legal 
worshippers, yet we should still have the same affections. As 
they might not wait upon thee sorrowful, so it is not for us to 
praise thee with drooping and dejected spirits. God, do thou 
quicken my spiritual dulness in thy holy service ; and when I 
come to celebrate thy great Name, while the song is in my mouth, 
let ray heart be the stage wherein trumpets and psalteries and 
harps shall sound forth thy praise. 

LXXVIL — Blemishes of the Holy Function. 
I cannot but bless mvself at the sight of that strange kind of 
curiosity which is reported to have been used in the choice of 
those who were of old admitted to serve at the altar. If Levi 
must be singled out from all Israel, yet thousands must be re- 
fused of the tribe of Levi. We are told^, that, notwithstanding 
that privilege of blood, no less than an hundred and forty ble- 
mishes might exclude a man from this sacred ministration ; 
whereof riinetcen in the eyes, nine in the ears, twenty in the feet. 
Such an holy niceness there was in the election of the legal 

' Maimonides in Clie hamikdash. c. 3. [De vasis Saiictuarii, &c.] 
•« Maiinon. in Biath hamikdash. [De ingressu Sanctuarii, &c.] 



— LXXVIIL] Self-Conferences. 89 

priesthood, that if there were not found an exact symmetry of all 
parts of the body, and not comeliness only, but a perfection of 
outward form^ in those Levitical candidates, they might by no 
means be allowed to serve in the sanctuary : they might have 
place in some outrooms, and cleave wood for the altar, and might 
claim a portion in the holy things ; but they might not meddle 
with the sacred utensils, nor set foot upon the floor of the holy 
place. It was thy charge, God, that those sons of Aaron which 
drew near to thee should be void of blemish ; thou, which wouldest 
have the beasts of thy sacrifice free from bodily imperfection, 
wouldest much more have thy sacrificers so. The generality of 
the command was thine ; the particularities of the numbers are tra- 
ditional. And well might the care of these outward observations 
agree with the pedagogy of that law which consisted in external 
rites ; but we well know it was the inward purity of the heart, 
and integrity of an unspotted life, that thou meantest to aim at 
under the figure of these bodily perfections ; which if it were 
wanting, it was not a skin-deep beauty and exquisiteness of shape 
that could give a son of Aaron an allowed access to thine altar. 
Hophni and Phinehas, the ill sons of good Eli, were outwardly 
blemishless, else they had not been capable of so holy an at- 
tendance ; but their insolencies and beastliness made them more 
loathsome to thee, than if they had been lepers or monsters of 
outward deformity. And can we think that thou hast less regard 
to the purity of the evangelical ministry than thou formerly 
hadst of the legal ? Can we think the spiritual blemishes of thine 
immediate servants under the Gospel can be a less eyesore to 
thee than the external blemishes of thy priesthood under the 
Law ! that my head ivere waters, and mine eyes a fountain 
of tears, that I might iveej) day and night for the enormities of 
those who profess to wait on thy evangehcal sanctuary ! Jer. ix. i . 
My sorrow and piety cannot but bewail them to thee, though my 
charity forbids me to blazon them to the world. thou that art 
as the refiner' s fire and ihefidler's sope, do ihoxx purify all the 
sons of thy spiritual Levi: do thou purge them as gold and 
silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offh'ing of right- 
eousness : tlien shall the offerings of our Judah and Jerusalem 
he pleasant to the Lord, as in the days of old, and as informer 
years, Mai. iii. 2, 4. 

LXXVIII. — llie blessed Reward. 
When Paulinus came first into this island to preach the gospel 



90 Self-Conferences. [Soliloquy LX XVIII — 

to our then pagan ancestors, king Edwin tliought good to consult 
with his priests and nobles whether it were best to give any en- 
tertainment to the Christian religion, which was by that stranger 
preached and recommended to his peopled Up starts one Coifi, 
the arch-priest of those heathen idols, and freely says : " There 
is no virtue or goodness, O king, in this religion which we have 
hitherto embraced : there is none of all thy subjects that hath 
more studiously addicted himself to the service and worship of 
our gods than myself; yet I am sure there are many that have 
prospered better, and have received more favours from thee than 
I have done : and if our gods could do any thing, they would 
rather have been beneficent to me, that have most carefully 
served them : it remains, then, if these new doctrines which are 
preached to us be found upon examination to be better and more 
available, that without all delay we do readily receive and wel- 
come them/^ Thus spake a true idol's priest, that knew no ell 
whereby to measure religion, but profit ; no proof of a just cause, 
but success ; no conviction of injustice, but miscarriage. Yea, 
even thine altars, righteous God, were never quit of some such 
mercenary attendants, who seek for only gain in godliness : if 
the queen of heaven afford them better pennyworths, and more 
plenty than the King of heaven, she shall have their cakes and 
their incense, and their hearts to boot, Jer. xliv. 17, 18. I know 
thee, Lord, to be a munificent rewarder of all that serve thee ; 
yet, if thou shouldest give me no wages, I will serve thee ; if thou 
shouldest pay me with hunger and stripes, and prisons and death, 
I will serve thee. Away, base thoughts of earthly remuneration : 
I will honour and serve thee, God, for thine own sake, for thy 
servicers sake ; yet I have no reason not to regard thine infinite 
bounty : it is no less than a crown that thou hast promised me ; 
and that I shall humbly aspire unto, and expect from thee, not as 
in the way of my merit, but of thy mere mercy. My service is 
free, in a zealous and absolute consecration to thee : thy hand is 
more free, in my so gracious retribution. If thou be pleased to 
give thy servant such a weight of glory, the glory of that gift is 
thine. My service is out of my just duty ; thy reward is of thy 
grace and divine beneficence. Do thou give me to do what thou 
biddest me, and then deal with me as thou wilt. As the glory of 
thy name is the drift of all my actions, so the glory that thou 
givest me cannot but redound to the glory of thine infinite mercy. 

' Beda Eccles. Hist. 1, ii. cap. 13. 



— LXXIX.] Self- Conferences. 91 

Blessed be thy name in what thou givest, while thou raakest me 
blessed in what I receive from thee. 

LXXIX. — Presages of Judgment. 

Seldom ever do we read of any great mutation in church or 
state which is not ushered in with some strange prodigies : either 
raining of blood ; or apparitions of comets ; or airy armies fight- 
ing in the clouds ; or sea monsters appearing ; or monstrous 
births of men or beasts ; or bloody springs breaking out : or dire- 
ful noises heard ; or some such like uncouth premonitors ; which 
the great and holy God sends purposely to awaken our security, 
and to prepare us either for expectation or prevention of judg- 
ments : wherein the mercy of God marvellously magnifies itself 
towards sinful mankind^ that he wills not to surprise us with un- 
warned evils, but would have his punishments anticipated by a 
seasonable repentance. But of all the foretokens of thy fear- 
fullest plagues prepared for any nation, God, there is none so 
certain as the prodigious sins of the people committed with an 
high hand against heaven, against so clear a light, so powerful 
convictions. The monstrous and unmatchable heresies, the hellish 
blasphemies, the brutish incests, the savage murders, the horrible 
sacrileges, perjuries, sorceries of any people, can be no other than 
the professed harbingers of vengeance : these are our showers of 
blood: these are our illboding comets: these are our misshapen 
births ; which an easy augury might well construe to portend 
our threatened destruction. The prophet did not more certainly 
foretell, when he heard of an handbroad cloud arising from the 
sea, that a vehement rain was coming, (i Kings xviii. 44,) than 
God's seers might foreknow when they saw this dark cloud of our 
sins mounting up towards heaven, that a tempest of judgment 
must necessarily follow. But, O thou God of infinite mercy and 
compassion, look down from heaven upon us, and he/told us from 
the habitation of thy holiness : where is thy zeal, and thy 
strength, the sounding of thy boiuels, and of thy tnercies towards 
us? are they restrained? Isaiah Ixiii. 15. If so, it is but just; 
for surely we are a sinfid nation, a people laden with iniquity, 
Isaiah i. 4. We have seen our tokens and have felt thy hand ; 
yet we have not turned to thee from our evil ways : to us, there- 
fore, justly helongeth confusion of faces, because ive have sinned 
against thee ; but to thee, O Lord our God, belong mercies and 



90 Self 'Conferences. [Soliloquy LXXX. 

forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against thee, Dan. ix. 8, 9. 
spare, spare the remnant of thy people : let thine anger and 
thy furij he turned away from thy chosen inheritance. my 
God, hear the j^rayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and 
cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, 
ver. i6j 17. Lord, hear ; Lord, forgive; Lord, hearken, 
and defer not for thine own sake, my God, ver. 19. 

LXXX. — Unwearied m^otion, and rest eternal. 
I see thy heavens, God, move about continually, and are 
never weary of their revolution ; whereas all sublunary creatures 
are soon tired with motions, and seek for ease in their intermis- 
sions. Even so, my soul, the nearer thou growest to celestial, 
the more constant shall thy courses be, and the freer from that 
lassitude that hangs upon thine earthly part. As it is now with 
me ; thou seest I soon find an unavoidable defatigation in all 
things : I am weary of labour ; and when that is done, I am no 
less weary of doing nothing ; weary of the day, and more weary 
of the night ; weary of all postures, weary of all places ; weary 
of any one, if never so pleasing, employment ; weary, even of 
varieties ; weary of those which some men call recreations ; 
weary of those wherein I find most delight, my studies. But, 
my soul, if thou be once soundly heavenized in thy thoughts and 
affections, it shall be otherwise with thee : then thou shalt be 
ever, like this firmament, most happily restless : thou shalt then 
find ever work enough to contemplate that infinite Deity who 
divells in the light inaccessible ; to see, with ravishment of spirit, 
thy dear Saviour in his glorified humanity, adored by all the 
powers of heaven; to view the blessed orders of that celestial 
hierarchy, attending upon the throne of Majesty ; to behold and 
admire the unspeakable and incomprehensible glory of the saints : 
these are objects with the sight whereof thine eye shall never be 
satisfied, much less cloyed ; besides, that the hopes and desires of 
enjoying so great felicity, and the care of so composing thyself as 
that thou raayest be ever readily addressed for the fruition of it, 
shall wholly take thee up, with such contentment, that all earthly 
pleasures shall be no better than torments in comparison thereof. 
O then, my soul, since, as a spark of that heavenly fire, thou 
canst never be but in motion, fix here above, where thy movings 
can be no other than pleasing and l)eatifical. And as thou, my 



LXXX.] Self-Conferences. 93 

God, hast a double heaven ; a lower heaven for motion, and an 
empyreal heaven for rest ; one patent to the eye, the other visible 
to our faith ; so let my soul take part with them both ; let it ever 
be moving towards thee and in thee, like this visible heaven ; 
and since the end of all motion is rest, let it ever rest with thee, 
in that invisible region of glory. So let it move ever to thee, 
while I am here, that it may ever rest with thee, in thine eternal 
glory hereafter ! 



THE SOUL'S FAKE WELL TO EARTH, 

AND 

APPROACHES TO HEAVEN. 



Section I. 
Be thou ever, my soul, holily ambitious ; always aspiring 
towards thy heaven ; not entertaining any thought that makes 
not towards blessedness. For this cause, therefore, put thyself 
upon thy wings, and leave the earth below thee ; and when thou 
art advanced above this inferior world, look down upon this globe 
of wretched mortality, and despise what thou wast and hadst; 
and think with thyself, " There was I, not a sojourner so much 
as prisoner for some tedious years ; there have I been thus 
long tugging with my miseries, with my sins ; there have my 
treacherous senses betrayed me to infinite evils, both done and 
suffered. How have I been there tormented with the sense of 
others' wickedness, but more of my own ! what insolence did I 
see in men of power ! what rage in men of blood ! what gross 
superstition in the ignorant ! what abominable sacrilege in those 
that would be zealous ! what drunken revellings, what sodomitical 
filthiness, Avhat hellish profanations, in atheous ruffians ! what 
perfidiousness in friendship, what cozenage in contracts, what 
cruelty in revenges ! shortly, what an hell upon earth ! Farewell 
then, sinful world, whose favours have been no other than snares, 
and whose frowns no less than torments ; farewell for ever : for 
if my flesh cannot yet clear itself of thee, yet my spirit shall ever 
know thee at a distance, and behold thee no otherwise than the 
escaped mariner looks back upon the rock whereon he was lately 
splitted. Let thy bewitched clients adore thee for a deity: all 
the homage thou shalt receive from me shall be no other than 
defiance ; and if thy glorious shows have deluded the eyes of 
credulous spectators, I know thee for an impostor : deceive hence- 
forth those that trust thee ; for me, I am out of the reach of thy 
fraud, out of the power of thy malice.'' 



The SouVs Farewell to Earth. 95 

Thus do thou, my soul, when thou art raised up to this 
height of thy fixed contemplation, cast down thine eyes con- 
temptuously upon the region of thy former miseries, and be sure 
ever to keep up in a constant ascent towards blessedness, not 
suffering thyself to stoop any more upon these earthly vanities. 

For tell me seriously, when the world was disposed to court 
thee most of all, what did it yield thee but unsound joys, sauced 
with a deep anguish of spirit ; false hopes, shutting up in an 
heartbreaking disappointment ; windy proffers, mocking thee with 
sudden retractions ; bitter pills in sugar ; poison in a golden cup ? 
It showed thee perhaps stately palaces, but stuffed Avith cares ; 
fair and populous cities, but full of toil and tumult ; flourishing 
churches, but annoyed with schism and sacrilege ; rich treasures, 
but kept by ill spirits; pleasing beauties, but baited with temptation ; 
glorious titles, but surcharged with pride ; goodly semblances, 
with rotten insides ; in short, death, disguised with pleasures and 
profits. 

If therefore heretofore thy unexperience have suffered thy 
feathers to be belimed with these earthly entanglements, yet 
now, that thou hast happily cast those plumes and quit thyself of 
these miserable incumbrances, thou mayest soar aloft above the 
sphere of mortality, and be still towering up towards thine heaven ; 
and as those that have ascended to the top of some Athos or 
Teneriffe sec all things below them in the valleys small and scarce^ 
in their diminution discernible, so shall all earthly objects, in thy 
spiritual exaltation, seem unto thee ; either thou shalt not see 
them at all, or at least so lessened, as that they have to thee quite 
lost all the proportion of their former dimensions. 

Section II. 

It will not be long, my soul, ere thou shalt absolutely leare 
the world in the place of thine habitation, being carried up by 
the blessed angels to thy rest and glory ; but in the mean time 
thou must resolve to leave it in thy thoughts and affections. Thou 
mayest have power over these even before the hour of thy sepa- 
ration ; and these, rightly disposed, have power to exempt thee 
beforehand from the interest of this inferior world, and to ad- 
vance thine approaches to that world of the blessed. While thou 
art confined to this clay there is naturally a luggage of carnality, 
that hangs heavy upon thee, and sways thee down to the earth, 
not suffering thee to mount upward to that bliss whereunto thou 



96 The Soul's Farewell to Earth. 

aspirest : this must be shaken off, if thou wouldcst attain to any 
capacity of happiness ; even in this sense, flesh and blood cannot 
inherit the Jcingdom of God. It behoves thee to be, so far as 
this composition will admit, spirituahzed, ere tliou canst hope to 
attain to any degree of blessedness. 

Thy conjunction with the body doth necessarily clog thee with 
an irrational part, which will unavoidably force upon thee some 
operations of its own; and thy senses will be interposing themselves 
in all thy intellectual employments, proffering thee the service of 
their guidance in all thy proceedings ; but, if thou lovest eternity 
of blessedness, shake them off as importunate suitors ; gather up 
thyself into thy own regenerated powers, and do thy work with- 
out and above them. It is enouo-h that thou hast at first taken 
some hint from them of what concerns thee ; as for the rest, cast 
them off as unnecessary and impertinent, the prosecution whereof 
is too high and too internal for them to intermeddle with. Thou 
hast now divine and heavenly things in chase, whereof there 
cannot be the least scent in any of these earthly faculties. Divest 
thyself therefore, what thou possibly mayest, of all materiality, 
both of objects and apprehensions ; and let thy pure, renewed, and 
illuminated intellect work only upon matter spiritual and celestial. 

And, above all, propose unto thyself, and dwell upon, that purest, 
perfectest, simplest, blessedest object, the glorious and incompre- 
hensible Deity: there thou shalt find more than enough to take 
up thy thoughts to all eternity. Be thou, O my soul, ever swallowed 
up in the consideration of that infinite self-being Essence, whom 
all created spirits are not capable sufliciently to admire. Behold, 
and never cease wondering at, the majesty of his glory. The 
bodily eyes dazzle at the sight of the sun : but if there were 
as many suns as there are stars in the firmament of heaven, their 
united splendour were but darkness to their all-glorious Creator. 
Thou canst not yet hope to see him as he is ; but, lo, thou be- 
holdest where he dwells in light inaccessible, the sight of whose 
very outward verge is enough to put thee into a perpetual ecstasy. 
It is not for thee as yet to strive to enter within the vail ; thine 
eyes may not be free where the angels hide their faces. What 
thou wantest in sight, my soul, supply in wonder. Never any 
mortal man, God, durst sue to see thy face, save that one entire 
servant of thine, Avhose face thy conference had made shining and 
radiant; but even he, though inured to thy presence, was not 
capable to behold such glory and live. Far be it from me, Lord, 



The SouVs Farewell to Earth. 97 

to presume so high. Only let me see thee as thou hast bidden 
me ; and but so as not to behold thee after thy gi-acious revela- 
tion, were my sin. Let me see, even in this distance, some 
glimmering of thy divine Power, Wisdom, Justice, Mercy, Truth, 
Providence, and let me bless and adore thee in what I see. 

Section III. 

O the infiniteness of thine Almighty power, which thou not 
hast, but art beyond the possibihty of all limitations of objects or 
thoughts. In us poor finite creatures, our power comes short of 
our will : many things we fain would do, but cannot ; and great 
pity it were, that there should not be such a restraint upon our 
unruly appetites, which would otherwise work out the destruction 
both of others and ourselves. But, God, thy power is beyond 
thy will : thou canst do more than thou wilt : thou couldest have 
made more worlds when thou madest this one ; and even this 
one, which thou hast made, Lord, how glorious a one it is ! Lo, 
there needs no other demonstration of thine omnipotence. 

what a heaven is this, which thou hast canopied over our 
heads ! how immensely capacious ! how admirably beautiful ! how 
bestudded with goodly globes of light ! some one whereof hath in 
it such unspeakable glory, as that there have not wanted nations, 
and those not of the savagest, which have misworshipped it for 
their god ; and if thou hadst made but one of these in thy firma- 
ment, thy workmanship had been above our wonder ; for even this 
had surpassed the whole frame of this lower world. But now, as 
their quality strives with their greatness, so their magnitude 
strives with their number, which of them shall more magnify the 
praise of their Almighty Creator : and these three are no less 
than matched by the constant regularity of the perpetual motion 
of those mighty bodies, which, having walked their daily rounds 
about the world above this five thousand six hundred and sixty 
years, yet are so ordered by thy inviolable decree, that they have 
not varied one inch from their appointed hne, but keep their due 
course and just distance each from other, although not fixed in 
any solid orb, but moving singly in a thin and yielding sky, to 
the very same point whence they set forth. 

And if the bodily and visible part of thy heavenly host, O God, 
be thus unconceivably glorious, where shall we find room to won- 
der at those spiritual and living powers which inhabit those ce- 
lestial mansions, and attend upon the throne of thy Majesty ; the 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. H 



98 The Soul's Farewell to Earth. 

thousand thousands of thy blessed angels, archangels, cherubim, 
seraphim, thrones, principalities, dominions, which in thy presence 
enjoy a bliss next to infinite ; any one of which, if we could see 
him, were enough to kill us with his glory ? Not one of those mil- 
lions of mighty spirits but were able to destroy a world. O, then, 
how infinitely transcendent is that power of thine which hast both 
created all this heavenly hierarchy, and so movest in them, that 
only in and by thee they are thus potent ! 

Yea, Lord, let me but cast mine eyes down to this earth I tread 
upon, and view thy wonders in the deep, how manifestly do these 
proclaim thy divine omnipotence ! When I see this vast globe of 
earth and waters dreadfully hanging in the midst of a liquid air, 
upheld by nothing but by thy powerful word ; when I see the rage 
of the swelling waves, naturally higher than the shores they beat 
upon, restrained to their bounds by thine overruling command ; 
when I see the earth beautifully garnished with marvellous variety 
of trees, herbs, flowers, richly stuifed with precious metals, stones, 
minerals ; when I see, besides a world of men, the numberless 
choice and differences of the substance, forms, colours, dispositions 
of beasts, fowls, fishes, wherewith these lower elements are peo- 
pled ; how can I be but dissolved into wonder of thine almighty 

power ! 

Section IV. 

Neither is thy power, God, either more, or more thyself, 
than thy wisdom, which is no less essential to thee than infinite. 
What have we to do, silly and shallow wretches, with that incom- 
prehensible wisdom which is intrinsical to thy divine nature ? The 
body of that sun is not for our weak eyes to behold ; it is enough 
for me, if I can but see some rays of that heavenly light which 
shines forth so gloriously upon thy creature, in the framing and 
governing whereof, whether thy power or wisdom did and do 
more exhibit itself, thou only canst judge. 

0, the divine architecture of this goodly fabric of heaven and 
earth, raised out of nothing to this admirable perfection ! what 
stupendous artifice of composition is here ! what exquisite sym- 
metry of parts ! what exact order of degrees ! what marvellous 
analogy betwixt beasts, fishes, plants, the natives of both elements ! 

O, what a comprehensive reach is this of thine omniscience, 
which at once, in one act, beholdest all the actions and events of 
all the creatures that were, are, or shall be in this large universe ! 
What a contrivance of thine eternal counsel, which hast most 



The Souls Farewell to Earth. 99 

wisely and holily ordered how to dispose of every creature thou 
hast made, according to the pleasure of thy most just will! What 
a sway of providence is this that governs the world ; overruling 
the highest, and stooping to the meanest piece of thy creation ; 
concurring with and actuating the motions and operations of all 
second causes of whatsoever is done in heaven or in earth ! 

Yea, Lord, how wonderful are those irradiations of knowledge 
and wisdom which thou hast beamed forth upon thine intelligent 
creatures, both angels and men ! As for those celestial spirits 
which see thy face continually, it is no marvel if they be illumi- 
nated in a degree far above human apprehension ; but that the 
rational soul of man, even in this woful pilgrimage below, notwith- 
standing the opacity of that earth wherewith it is encompassed, 
should be so far enlightened, as that it is able to know all the 
motions of the heavens ; the magnitudes and distances of stars ; the 
natures, properties, influences of the planets ; the instant of the 
eclipses, conjunctions, and several aspects of those celestial bodies ; 
that it can discover the secret treasures of earth and sea, and 
knows how to unlock all the close cabinets both of art and nature : 
O God, what is this but some little gleam of that pure and 
glorious light which breaks forth from thine infiniteness upon thy 
creature ? 

Yet were the knowledge of all men on earth and all the angels 
in heaven multiplied a thousand fold, how unable were it, being 
united together, to reach unto the height of thy divine counsels, 
to fathom the bottom of thy most wise and holy decrees ! so as 
they must be forced to cry out, with that saint of thine who was 
rapt into the third heaven, the depth of the riches both of the 
wisdom and knowledge of Ood ! hoiv unsearcliahle are his judg- 
ments, and his ways past finding out! Rom. xi. ^;^. 

Section V. 

But with what a trembling adoration, my soul, must thou 
needs look upon the infinite justice of thy God, whose inviolable 
rule is to render to every man according to his works ! Alas, the 
little good thou wert able to do hath been allayed with so many 
and great imperfections, that it can expect no retribution but dis- 
pleasure ; and for the many evils whereof thou art guilty, what 
canst thou look for but the wages of sin— death ? not temporary 
and natural only, which is but a separation of thee, a while, from 
thy load of earth ; but the spiritual and eternal separation frouj 

H 2 



100 The Soul's Fareivell to Earth. 

the presence of thy God, whose very want is the height of tor- 
ments. Lo, whatever become of thee, God must be himself. In 
vain shouldest thou hope, that for thyself he will abate aught of 
his blessed essence of the s?tcred attributes. That righteous doom 
must stand, The soul that sins shall die. Hell claims his due : 
justice must be satisfied: where ai't thou now, O my soul? what 
canst thou now make account of, but to despair and die ? surely 
in thyself thou art lost ; there is no way with thee but utter 
perdition. 

But look up, my soul, look up above the hills, whence cometh 
thy salvation : see the heavens opening upon thee ; see what re- 
viving and comfortable rays of grace and mercy shine forth unto 
thee from that excellent glory ; and out of that heavenly light 
hear the voice of thy blessed Saviour saying to thee, O Israel, 
thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help, Hos. xiii. 9. 
Even so, Jesu, in thee, only in thee, is my help. Wretched 
man that I am, in myself I stand utterly forfeited to death and 
hell ; it is thou that hast redeemed me with no less ransom than 
thy precious blood. Death was owing by me ; by thee it was paid 
for me ; so as now my debt is fully discharged, and my soul 
clearly acquitted : Who shall lay any thing to the charge of 
God's elect ? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that con- 
demneth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again. 
Rom. viii. '^■J>i 34- ^^j ^0^' ^^^ rigour of thine inviolable justice 
is taken off by thine infinite mercy ; the sum that I could never 
pay, is, by the power of that faith which thou hast wrought in me, 
set off to my all-sufficient surety, and.^by thy divine goodness 
graciously accepted as mine ; I have paid it in him, he hath paid 
it for me. Thy justice is satisfied, thy debtor freed, and thy 
mercy magnified. 

Section VL 

There are no bounds to be set unto thy thoughts, O my soul ; 
since whatsoever thy God either is or hath done comes within 
thy prospect. There, besides the great work of his creation, thou 
mayest dwell upon the no less almighty work of his administration 
of this universal world, whereof the preservation and government 
is no less wonderful than the frame ; there, thou shalt see the 
marvellous subordination of creatures, some made to rule, others 
to obey ; the powerful influence of the celestial bodies upon the 
inferior, the continual transmutation of elements forsaking their 
own places and natures to serve the whole ; forms dying, matter 



The Soul's Fareivell to Earth. 101 

perpetual ; all things maintained by a friendly discord of humours, 
out of which they are raised ; the circular revolution of fashions, 
occurrents, events ; the different and opposite dispositions of men, 
overruled to such a temper, that yet government is continued in 
the hands of few, society and commerce Avith all ; shortly, all crea- 
tures, while they do either naturally or voluntarily act their own 
part, doing unawares the wall of their Creator. 

Bat that which may justly challenge thy longer stay and greater 
wonder, is, the more than transcendent work of man's redemption, 
the mysteries whereof the holy angels have desired to look into, 
I Pet. i. 12, but could never yet sufficiently conceive or admire. 
That the Son of God, the Lord of glory, coeternal, coequal to his 
Father, God blessed for ever, should take upon him an estate 
lower than their own ; should clothe his Deity with the rags of 
our flesh ; should stoop to weak and miserable manhood ; and, in 
that low and despicable condition, should submit himself to hunger, 
thirst, weariness, temptation of devils, despite of men ; to the 
cruelty of tormentors ; to agonies of soul ; to the pangs of a bitter, 
ignominious, cursed death ; to the sense of his Father's wrath for 
us wretched sinners, that had made ourselves the worst of crea- 
tures, enemies to God, slaves to Satan — is above the reach of all 
finite apprehension. never-to-be-enough- magnified mercy ^! 
Thou didst not, Saviour, when thou sawest mankind utterly 
lost and forlorn, content thyself to send down one of thy cherubim 
or seraphim, or some other of thy heavenly angels, to undertake 
the great work of our dehverance, as well knowing that task too 
high for any created power ; but wouldest, out of thine infinite 
love and compassion, vouchsafe so to abase thy blessed self, as to 
descend from the throne of thy celestial glory to this dungeon of 
earth, and, not leaving what thou hadst and what thou wast, to 
assume what thou hadst not, man ; and to disparage thyself by 
being one of us, that we might become like unto thee, coheirs of 
thy glory and blessedness. Thou, that art the eternal son of God, 
wouldest condescend so low as to be man ; that we, who are worms 
and no men, might be advanced to be the sons of God : thou 
wouldest, be a servant that we might reign ; thou wouldest expose 
thyself to the shame and disgrace of thy vile creatures here, that 
thou mightest raise us up to the height of heavenly honour with 
thee our God and thy holy angels ; thou wouldest die for a while, 
that we might live eternally. 

* Bernard. Serm. de passione Domini. 



102 The Sours Farewell to Earth. 

Pause here a while, my soul, and do not wish to change thy 
thoughts : neither earth nor heaven can yield thee any of higher 
concernment, of greater comfort : only, withal, behold the glo- 
rious person of that thy blessed Mediator, after his victories over 
death and hell, sitting triumphant in all the majesty of heaven, 
adored by all those millions of celestial spirits, in his glorified 
humanity; and what thou mayest, enjoy the vision of him by 
faith, till thou shalt be everlastingly blessed with a clear and 
present intuition. Long after that day ; and be ever careful, in 
the mean time, to make thyself ready for so infinite an happiness. 

Section VII. 

And now, my soul, having left below thee all the trivial 
vanities of earth, and fixed thyself, so far as thy weak eyes will 
allow thee, upon thy God and Saviour, in his almighty works 
and most glorious attributes, it will be time for thee, and will 
not a little conduce to thy further address towards blessedness, to 
fasten thyself upon the sight of the happy estate of the saints 
above, who are gone before thee to their bhss, and have, through 
God^s mercy, comfortably obtained that which thou aspirest unto. 
Thou, that wert guided by their example, be likewise heartened 
by their success : thou art yet a traveller ; they, comprehensors : 
thou art panting towards that rest which they most happily enjoy: 
thou art sweating under the cross, while they sit crowned in an 
heavenly magnificence. 

See the place wherein they are, the heaven of heavens, the 
paradise of God ; infinitely resplendent, infinitely delectable ; such 
as no eye can behold and not be blessed. Shouldest thou set thy 
tabernacle in the midst of the sun, thou couldest not but be en- 
compassed with marvellous light : yet even there it would be but 
as midnight with thee, in comparison of those irradiations of 
glory which shine forth above in that imperial region ; for thy 
God is the sun there, Rev. xxi. 23 : by how much, therefore, those 
divine rays of his exceed the brightest beams of his creature ; so 
much doth the beauty of that heaven of the blessed surpass the 
created light of this inferior and starry firmament. Even the very 
place contributes not a little to our joy or misery. It is hard to 
be merry in a gaol : and the great Persian monarch thought it 
very improper for a courtier to be of a sad countenance within 
the verge of so great a royalty, Neh. ii. 2. The very devils con- 
ceive horror at the apprehension of the place of their torment, 



The SouPs Fareivell to Earth. 103 

and can beseech the overruUng power of thy Saviour not to com- 
mand them to go out into the deep, Luke viii. 31. No man can 
be so insensate to think there can be more dreadfulness in the 
place of those infernal tortures, than there is pleasure and joy in 
the height of that sphere of blessedness ; since we know we have 
to do with a God that delights more in the prosperity of his 
saints than in the cruciation and howling of his enemies. IIow 
canst thou then, O my soul, be but wholly taken up with the 
sight of that celestial Jerusalem, the beauteous city of thy God, 
the blessed mansions of glorified spirits ! Surely, if earth could 
have yielded any thing more fair and estimable than gold, pearls, 
precious stones, it should have been borrowed to resemble these 
supernal habitations ; but, alas ! the lustre of these base mate- 
rials doth but darken the resplendence of those divine excellen- 
cies. With what contempt now dost thou look down upon those 
muddy foundations of earth which the low spirits of worldlings 
are wont to admire 1 and how feelingly dost thou bless and emu- 
late the spirits of just men made perfect, who are honoured with 
so blissful an habitation ! Heb. xii. 23. 

But what were the place, my soul, how goodly and glorious 
soever in itself, if it were not for the presence of Him whose 
being there makes it heaven ? Lo there the throne of that hea- 
venly Majesty, which, filling and comprehending the large cir- 
cumference of this whole, both lower and superior world, yet 
there keeps and manifests his state, with the infinite magnificence 
of the King of eternal glory. There he, in an ineffectible man- 
ner, communicates himself to blessed spirits, both angels and men ; 
and that very vision is no less to them than beatifical. Surely, 
were the place a thousand degrees lower in beauty and per- 
fection than it is, yet that presence would render it celestial : the 
residence of the king was wont to turn the meanest village or 
castle into a court. The sweet singer of Israel saw this of old, 
and could say, In thy preseiice is the fulness of joy; and at thy 
right hand are pleasures for evermore. It is not so in these 
earthly and finite excellencies. A man may see mountains of 
treasure, and be never a whit the richer ; and may be the witness 
and agent too in another's honour, as Haman was of Mordecai's, 
and be so much more miserable ; or may view the pomp and splen- 
dour of mighty princes, and be yet still a beggar : but the infinite 
graces of that heavenly King are so communicative, that no man 
can see him but must be transformed into the likeness of his glory. 



104. The SouVs Farewell to Earth. 

Section VIII. 

Even thy weak and imperfect vision of such heavenly objects, 
O my soul, are enough to lay a foundation of thy blessedness: and 
how can there choose but be raised thence, as a further degree 
towards it, a sweet complacency of heart, in an appropriation of 
what thou seest ; without which, nothing can make thee happy ? 
Let the sun shine never so bright, what is this to thee, if thou be 
blind ? Be the God of heaven never so glorious, yet if he be not 
thy God ; be the Saviour of the world never so merciful, yet if 
he be not merciful to thee ; be the heaven never so full of 
beauty and majesty, yet if thou have not thy portion in that 
inheritance of the saints in hght ; so far will it be from yielding 
thee comfort, that it will make a further addition to thy torment. 
What an aggravation of misery shall it be to those that were 
children of the kingdom, that, from that utter darkness whereinto 
they are cast, they shall see aliens come from the east and west, 
and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom, 
of heaven ! Matth. viii. ii. Cease not then, O my soul, till, by 
a sure and undefeasible application, thou hast brought all these 
home to thyself ; and canst look upon the great God of heaven, 
the gracious Redeemer of the world, the glory of that celestial 
paradise, as thine own. Let it be thy bold ambition and holy 
curiosity to find thy name enrolled in that eternal register of 
heaven ; and if there be any one room in the many mansions of 
that celestial Jerusalem lower and less resplendent than other, 
thither do thou find thyself, through the great mercy of thy God, 
happily designed. It must be the Avork of thy faith that must do 
it: that divine grace it is, the power whereof can either fetch down 
heaven to thee, or carry thee beforehand up to thy heaven ; and 
not affix thee only to thy God and Saviour, but unite thee to him, 
and, which is yet more, ascertain thee of so blessed an union. 

Neither can it be but that, from this sense of appropriation, there 
must necessarily follow a marvellous contentment and complacency 
in the assurance of so happy an interest. Lord, how do I see 
poor worldlings please themselves in the conceit of their miserable 
proprieties [properties] ! One thinks, "Is not this my great Babylon, 
wliieli I have built?" Dan, iv.30: another, "Are not these my 
rich mines 1" another, " Is not this my royal and adored magni- 
ficence?" And how are those unstable minds transported with 
the opinion of these great but indeed worthless peculiarities; 



The Soul's Fareivell to Earth. 105 

which, after some little time, moulder with them into dust ! How 
canst thou then be but pleasingly affected, O my soul, with the 
comfortable sense of having a God, a Saviour, and heaven of thine 
own ! for in these spiritual and heavenly fehcities our right is not 
partial and divided, as it useth to be in secular inheritances; so as 
that every one hath his share distinguished from the rest, and 
parcelled out of the whole ; but here each one hath all ; and this 
blessed patrimony is communicated to all saints, so as that the 
whole is the property of every one. 

Upon the assurance therefore of thy God's gracious promises 
made to every true believer, find thou thyself happily seised of 
both the King and kingdom of heaven, so far as thy faith can as 
yet feoff thee in both ; and delight thyself above all things in these 
unfailing pledges of thine instant blessedness, and say, with the 
holy mother of thy Redeemer, My soul doth magnify the Lord, 
and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour, Luke i. 46, 47. 

Section IX. 

From this feeling complacency, in the owning of thy right to 
glory and happiness, there cannot but arise a longing desire of the 
full possession thereof; for thou canst not so Httle love thyself, as 
what thou knowest thou hast a just title unto, and withal appre- 
hendest to be infinitely pleasing and beneficial, not to wish that 
thou mayest freely enjoy it. If thou have tasted how sweet the 
Lord is, thou canst not but long for more of him ; yea, for all. 

It is no otherwise even in carnal delights; the degustation 
whereof is wont to draw on the heart to a more eager appetition : 
much more in spiritual ; the pleasures whereof, as thy are more 
pure, so they are of the heavenly-minded with far greater ardency 
of spirit affected. The covetous man's heart is in his bags : what 
he hath doth but augment his lust of more; and the having of more 
doth not satiate, but enlarge his desires : He that loveth silver 
shall not he satisfied with silver ; nor he that loveth abtmdance 
with increase, Eccles. v. 10: but these celestial riches are so much 
more allective, as they are more excellent than those which are 
delved out of the bowels of the earth. 

O my soul, thou hast, through the favour of thy God, sipped 
some little of the cup of immortality, and tasted of that heavenly 
manna, the food of angels ; and canst thou take up with these 
slight touches of blessedness ? Thou hast, though most unworthy, 
the honour to be contracted to thy Saviour here below : thou 



106 The Soul's Fareiuell to Earth. 

knowest the voice of his spouse, Draw me, and lue shall run after 
thee. Stay me luith flagons ; comfort me with apples : for I am 
sick of love. Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe 
oi' to a young hart upon the mountains of spices, Cant. i. 4 ; ii.5 ; 
viii. 1 4. Where is thy love^ if thou have not fervent desires of a 
perpetual enjoyment ? if thou do not earnestly wish for a full con- 
summation of that heavenly match ? 

my Lord and Saviour, as I am not worthy to love thee, so I 
were not able to love thee, how amiable soever, but by thee. 
thou, that hast begun to kindle this fire of heavenly love iu me, 
raise thou it up to a perfect flame ; make me not only sick of thy 
love, but ready and desirous to die for thee, that I may enjoy 
thee. let me not endure that any w^orldly heart should be 
more enamoured of these earthly beauties, which are but var- 
nished rottenness, than I am of thee, who art of absolute and 
infinite perfections, and bestowest them in being loved, O when 
shall the day be wherein thou wilt make up these blessed nuptials, 
and endow me with a full participation of that glory wherewith 
thou art invested from and to all eternity ? whereto have all thy 
sweet favours and gracious lovetokens tended, but to this issue 
of blessedness ? O do thou crown all thy mercies in me, and me 

with immortality. 

Section X. 

Upon this desire of fruition, if thou wouldest be truly happy^ 
there must follow a constant prosecution of that desire ; for if 
thy wishes be never so fervent, yet if they be only volatile and 
transient, they shall be able to avail thee little : slight and flicker- 
ing motions of good, if they be not followed with due endeavours, 
sort to no effect. 

Content not thyself, therefore, my soul, that thou hast enter- 
tained into thyself some affective thoughts of thy beatitude, but 
settle thyself in firm resolutions to pursue and perpetuate them ; 
let them not call in as strangers, but dwell in thee as inmates ; 
never to be by any secular occasions dislodged. These morning 
dews of holy dispositions, which are ready to be exhaled with 
every gleam of worldly prosperity, as they find httle acceptance 
from God, so they, are able to afford small comfort to thee : as 
whose condition is such, that they leave thee more disconsolate in 
their vanishing than they yielded thee pleasure in their momen- 
tary continuance. Be thou able to say with holy David, My heart 
is fixed, God, my heart is fixed ; and then thou raayest well 



The SouVs Farewell to Earth. 107 

add, / will sing and give praise, Psalm Ivii. 7 : otherwise, thy dis- 
tracted thoughts will admit no cause of sound joy. 

In this case it falls out with thee, my soul, as with some 
fond child, who, eagerly following a bee in hope of her bag, sees 
a gay butterfly cross his way, and thereupon leaves his first 
chase, and runs after those painted wings : but in that pursuit, 
seeing a bird fly close by him, he leaves the fly in hope of a 
better purchase ; but in the mean time is disappointed of all, 
and catcheth nothing. It mainly behoves thee therefore to keep 
up thy cogitations and affections close to these heavenly objects, 
and to check them, whensoever thou perceivest an inclination to 
their wandering ; like as the careful huntsman, when he finds 
his hound offering to follow after a new game, rates him off, and 
holds him to his first scent. 

Whither are ye straying, my thoughts ? What means this 
sinful and lossful inconstancy ? Can ye be happier in a change ? 
Is there any thing in this miserable world that can be worthy to 
carry you away from the hopes and affectations of blessedness ? 
Have ye not full often complained of the worthlessness and satiety 
of these poor vanities here below ? have ye not found their pro- 
mises false, their performances unsatisfactory, their disappoint- 
ment irksome ? Away then, ye frivolous temptations, and solicit 
those minds that are low and empty like yourselves ; for me, I 
disdain your motions ; and, being taken up with higher employ- 
ments, scorn to descend to your base suggestions, which tend to 
nothing but mere earthliness. 

But as there is no fire which will not go out if it be not fed, 
it cannot be enough that thou hast entertained these gracious 
resolutions, unless thou do also supply and nourish them with 
holy meditations, devout prayers, continual ejaculations, and the 
due frequentation of all the holy ordinances of thy God ; without 
which, if they shall languish through thy neglect, thou shalt find 
double more work and difficulty in reviving them, than there 
could have been in maintaining and upholding them in their 
former vigour. Be not therefore wanting to thyself in the per- 
petual exercise and improvement of all those holy means that 
may further and perfect these heavenly longings after salvation : 
thy God shall not be wanting to thee, in blessing thee with an 
answerable success. 

Section XI. 

It is the just praise of the marvellous bounty of thy God, 



108 The Soul's Farewell to Earth. 

my soul, that he ivill fulfil the desires of them that fear him, 
Psalm cxlv. 19. If therefore thou canst hunger and thirst after 
righteousness, if thy heart can yearn after heaven, he shall be 
sure to satisfy thee with goodness ; and not only shall bring thee 
home at the last, to that land of promised blessedness, but in the 
mean time also put thee into an inchoate fruition of happiness, 
which is the next degree of thine ascent to heaven. 

That which is complete may be the surest rule of knowing and 
judging of that which is imperfect. Whei'ein doth the perfection 
of heavenly bliss consist, but in a perpetual enjoying the presence 
of God in a clear vision of the Divine Essence, in a perfect union 
with God, and an eternal participation of his life and glory ? jNiOw 
as grace is glory begun, and glory is grace consummate, so dost 
thou, O my soul, being wrought to it by the power of the Spirit 
of thy God, even in this life, how weakly soever, enter upon all 
these acts and privileges of beatitude : even here below thou art 
never out of the presence of thy God, and that presence can never 
be other than glorious ; and that it is not beatifical here, is not out 
of any deficiency in it, but in thine own miserable incapacity, who, 
while thou abidest in this vale of tears, and art clogged with this 
flesh, art no fit subject of so happy a condition. 

Yea, that blessed presence is ever comfortably acknowledged 
by thee, and enjoyed with such contentment and pleasure, that 
thou wouldest not part with it for a world, and that thou justly 
accountest all earthly delights but mere vexations to that alone : 
Whom have I in heaven hut thee ? and what do I desire on earth 
in comparison of thee ? Psalm Ixxiii. 25. Balaam could say, how 
truly soever, / shall see him, hut not noiu : I shall hehold him, 
but not nigh, Num. xxiv. 17 : but, Lord, I see thee even now : I 
behold thee so nigh me, that I hve in thee, and would rather die 
than Uve without thee. I see thee, though weakly and dimly, yet 
truly and really : I see thee, as my God all-sufiicient, as my 
powerful Creator, my merciful Redeemer, my gracious Comforter : 
I see thee the living God, the Father of Lights, the God of Spirits ; 
dwelling in light inaccessible, animating, filling, comprehending 
this glorious world ; and do awfully adore thine infiniteness. 

Neither do I look at thee with a trembling astonishment, as some 
dreadful stranger or terrible avenger ; but I behold thy Majesty 
so graciously complying with my wretchedness, that thou admittest 
me to a blessed union with thee. I take thee at thy word, dear 
Saviour, even that sweet word of impetration which thou wert 



The SouVs Farewell to Earth. 109 

pleased to utter to thy coeternal Father, immediately before thy 
meritorious passion : / pray not for these alone, hut for them 
also which shall believe on me through their word ; that they all 
may he one ; as thou, Father, art in me, and lin thee, that they 
may he one in us. And the glory ivhich thou gavest me I have 
given them ; that they may be one, even as ive are one : I in 
them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one ; 
and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast 
loved them as thou hast loved me. John xvii. 20—23. I know thou 
couldest not but be heard in all that thou prayedst, and therefore I 
take what thou suedst for as done. Lord, I do believe in thee ; unite 
thou me to thee ; make me one spirit with thee, i Cor. vi. 17. It is 
no presumption to sue and hope for what thou hast prayed for and 
promised to perform. make me^ according to the capabihty of 
my weak humanity, partaker of thy Divine nature, 2 Peter i. 4. 
Vouchsafe to allow me, even me, poor wretched soul, to say of 
thee, / am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine. Cant. vi. 3. 

And, by virtue of this indissoluble union, why shouldest thou 
not, my soul, find thyself endowed with a blessed participation 
of that heavenly life and glory which is in and with him ? In that 
thou art united to thy body, thou irapartest to it vegetation, sense, 
motion, and givest it a share in the exercise of all thy noble 
faculties; how much more entire and beneficial is the spiritual 
union of thy God and thee ! Alas, that bond of natural conjunc- 
tion is easily dissolved by ten thousand ways of death : this hea- 
venly knot is so fast tied, that all the powers of hell cannot unloose 
it ! And the blessings communicated to thee by this Divine match 
are so much more excellent, as the Infinite Giver of them is above 
thy meanness. Lo, now thou art actually interested in all that 
thy God is or hath : his kingdom is thine, his glory is thine, to 

all eternity. 

Section XII. 

And what now can follow, my soul, upon the apprehension 
of thus enjoying the presence of thy God, and the vision of so 
blessed an object, and thine union with him and participation of 
him, but a sensible ravishment of spirit, with a, joy unspeakable 
and full of glory ? Heretofore, if some great friend should have 
brought me to the court, and, having showed me the splendour 
and magnificence of that seat of majesty, should have brought me 
into the sight of his royal person, and should have procured me, 
not only a familiar conference with him, but the entire afi'ection 



no The SouVs Fareivell to Earth. 

of a favourite ; and from thence there should have been heaped 
upon me titles of honour and large revenues, and, yet higher, a 
consociation of princely dignity ; how should I have been trans- 
ported with the sense of so eminent an advancement ! how great 
and happy should I have seemed, not more in others' eyes than 
in my own ! what big thoughts had hereupon swollen up my heart 
in the days of my vanity ! 

But alas, what poor things are these in comparison of those hea- 
venly promotions! I might havebeen brought into the stateliest court 
of this world, and have been honoured, not only with the presence, 
but the highest favours of the best and greatest of kings, and yet 
have been most miserable. Yea, which of those monarchs that 
have the command and dispensation of all greatness can secure 
himself from the saddest infelicities ? But these spiritual preroga- 
tives are above the reach of all possible miseries, and can and do 
put thee, in some degree, into an unfailing possession, both real 
and personal, of eternal blessedness. 

I cannot wonder that Peter, when, with the other two disciples 
upon mount Tabor, he saw the glorious transfiguration of my 
Saviour, was out of himself for the time, and knew not what he 
said ; yet, as not thinking himself and his partners any other ways 
concerned than in the sight of so heavenly a vision, he mentions only 
three tabernacles, for Christ, Moses, Elias, none for themselves, 
Mark ix. 6 ; Luke ix. '^^. It Avas enough for him, if without doors 
he might be still blessed with such a prospect ; but how had he 
been rapt from himself, if he had found himself taken into the so- 
ciety of this wondrous transformation, and interested in the com- 
munion of this glory ! 

Thy renovation, and the power of thy faith, my soul, puts 
thee into that happy condition : thou art spiritually transfigured 
into the similitude of thy blessed Saviour, shining with his right- 
eousness and holiness, Rom. xii. 2 ; Eph. iv. 24 : so as he is glorified 
in thee and thou in him, John xvii, 10 ; 2 Thess. i. 12 : glorified, 
not in the fulness of that perfection which will be, but in the 
pledge and earnest of what shall and must be hereafter. 

then, with what unspeakable joy and jubilation dost thou 
entertain thy happiness ! How canst thou contain thyself any 
longer within these bounds of my flesh, when thou feelest thj^self 
thus initiated into glory? A^'t thou in heaven and knowestit not? 
knowest thou not that he who is within the entry or behind the 
screen, is as truly within the house as he that walks in the hall 



The Soul's Farewell to Earth. Ill 

or sits in the parlour ? and canst thou pretend to be within the 
verge of heaven, and not rejoice ? What is it that makes heaven, 
but joy and felicity ? Thy very thought cannot separate these two, 
no more than it can sever the sun and light ; for both these are 
equally the originals and fountains of light and joy, from whence 
they both flow, and in which both are complete. There is no light 
which is not derived from the sun, no true joy but from heaven : 
as therefore the nearer to the body of the sun, the more light 
and heat ; so, the nearer to heaven, the more excess of joy. And 
certainly, my soul, there is nothing but infidehty can keep thee 
from an exuberance of joy and delight in the apprehension of 
heaven. 

Can the weary traveller, after he hath measured many tedious 
miles, and passed many dangers both by sea and land, and felt 
the harsh entertainments of a stranger, choose but rejoice to draw 
near, in his return, to a rich and pleasant home ? Can the ward, 
after an hard pupillage, choose but rejoice that the day is 
coming wherein he shall freely enjoy all his lordly revenues and 
royalties ? Can a Joseph choose but find himself inwardly joyed 
when out of the dungeon he shall be called up, not to liberty only, 
but to honour, and shall be arrayed with a vesture of fine linen, 
and graced with Pharaoh's ring and chain, and set in his second 
chariot, and in the next chair to the throne of Egypt ? And canst 
thou apprehend thyself now approaching to the glory of the hea- 
ven of heavens, a place and state of so infinite contentment and 
happiness, and not be ecstasied with joy ? 

There, there shalt thou, O my soul, enjoy a perfect rest from 
all thy toils, cares, fears : there shalt thou find a true vital life, 
free from all the incumbrances of thy miserable pilgi'image ; free 
from the dangers of either sins or temptations ; free from all 
anxiety and distraction ; free from all sorrow, pain, pertur- 
bation ; free from all the possibility of change or death : a life 
wherein there is nothing but pure and perfect pleasure ; nothing 
but perpetual melody of angels and saints, singing sweet Hallelu- 
jahs to their God : a hfe which the most glorious Deity both gives 
and is : a life, wherein thou hast the full fruition of the ever-blessed 
Godhead, the continual society of the celestial spirits, the blissful 
presence of the glorified humanity of thy dear Saviour : a life, 
wherein thou hast ever consort with the glorious company of the 
apostles, the goodly fellowship of the patriarchs and prophets, the 
noble army of martyrs and confessors, the celestial synod of all 



112 The SouVs Farewell to Earth. 

the holy fathers and illuminated doctors of the Church ; shortly, 
the blessed assembly of all the faithful professors of the name of 
the Lord Jesus, that, having finished their course, sit now shining 
in their promised glory. See there that yet unapproachable light, 
that divine magnificence of the heavenly King : see that resplen- 
dent crown of righteousness which decks the heads of every of 
those saints, and is ready to be set on thine, when thou hast hap- 
pily overcome those spiritual powers wherewith thou art still con- 
flicting ; see the joyful triumphs of these exulting victors ; see the 
measures of their glory diff'erent, yet all full, and the least un- 
measurable : lastly, see all this happiness, not limited to thousands 
nor yet millions of years, but commeasured by no less than 
eternity. 

And now, my soul, if thou have received the infaUible engage- 
ment of thy God, in that having believed thou art sealed with 
that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of thine inherit- 
ance, until the full redemption of thy purchased possession, Eph. 
i. 13, 14 ; if through his infinite mercy thou be now upon the en- 
tering into that blessed place and state of immortality ; forbear, 
if thou canst, to be raised above thyself with the joy of the Holy 
Ghost, 1 Thess. i. 6 : to be enlarged towards thy God with a joy 
unspeakable and glorious. See, if thou canst now breathe forth 
any thing but praises to thy God, and songs of rejoicing ; bearing 
evermore a part in that heavenly ditty of the angels ; Blessing, 
and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, 
and might he unto our Ood,for ever and ever, Rev. vii. 12. 

Section XIII. 

And now what remains, my soul, but that thou do humbly 
and faithfully wait at the gate of heaven for an happy entrance, 
at the good pleasure of thy God, into those everlasting mansions ? 

I confess, should thy merits be weighed in the balance of a 
rigorous justice, another place, which I cannot mention without 
horror, were more fit for thee, more due to thee : for, alas ! thou 
hast been above measure sinful ; and thou knowest the wages of 
sin, death. But the God of my mercy hath prevented thee, 
with infinite compassion. Psalm hx. 10: and in the multitudes of 
his tender mercies hath not only delivered thee from the nether- 
most hell, Ps. Ixxxvi. 13, but hath also vouchsafed to translate thee 
to the kingdom of his dear Son, Col. i. 13. In him, thou hast 
boldness of access to the throne of grace ; thou who, in thyself, 



The SouVs Farewell to Earth. 113 

art worthy to be a child of wrath, art in him adopted to be a 
co-heir of glory ; and hast the livery and seisin given thee before- 
hand of a blessed possession ; the full estating wherein I do, in 
all humble awfulness, attend. 

All the few days therefore of my appointed time will I wait at 
the threshold of grace until my changing come, with a trembling 
joy, with a longing patience, with a comfortable hope. 

Only, Lord, I know there is something to be done ere I can 
enter : I must die ere I can be capable to enjoy that blessed hfe 
with thee : one stroke of thine angel must be endured in my passage 
into thy paradise. And, lo, here I am before thee, ready to em- 
brace the condition : even, when thou pleasest, let me bleed once 
to be ever happy. Thou hast, after a weary walk through this 
roaring wilderness, vouchsafed to call up thy servant to mount 
Nebo ; and from thence, aloof off, to show me the land of pro- 
mise, a land that flows with milk and honey. Do thou but say, 
" Die thou on this \vl\\" with this prospect in mine eye ; and do 
thou mercifully take my soul from me, who gavest it to me ; and 
dispose of it where thou wilt, in that region of immortality. Amen, 
Amen. Come, Lord Jesu, come quickly. 

Behold, Lord, I have, by thy providence, dwelt in this house 
of clay more than double the time wherein thou vvert pleased to 
sojourn upon earth : yet I may well say, with thine holy pa- 
triarch, Feiv and evil have been the days of the years of my pil- 
grimage. Gen. xlvii. 9 : few, in number ; evil, in condition. 

Few, in themselves ; but none at all to thee, with whom a 
thousand years are but as one day. But had they been double 
to the age of Methuselah, could they have been so much as one 
minute to eternity ? Yea, what were they to me, now that they 
are past, but as a tale that is told and forgotten t 

Neither yet have they been so few, as evil. Lord, what troubles 
and sorrows hast thou let me see, both my own and others'' ! what 
vicissitudes of sickness and health ! Avhat ebbs and flows of condi- 
tion ! how many successions and changes of princes, both at home 
and abroad ! what turnings of times ! what alteration of govern- 
ments ! what shiftings and downfalls of favourites ! what ruins 
and desolations of kingdoms ! what sacking of cities ! what ha- 
vocks of war ! what frenzies of rebellions ! what underminings of 
treachery ! what cruelties and barbarisms in revenges ! what an- 
guish in the oppressed and tormented ! what agonies in tempta- 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. I 



114 ' The SouVs Farewell to Earth. 

tions ! what pangs in dying ! These I have seen ; and in these 
I have suffered. And now, Lord, how wilHng I am to change 
time for eternity ; the evils of earth for the joys of heaven ; 
misery for happiness ; a dying hfe for immortahty ! 

Even so, Lord Jesu : take what thou hast bought : receive 
my soul to thy mercy ; and crown it with thy glory : Amen, 
Amen, Amen. 



I 



THE 

GREAT MYSTERY OF GODLINESS, 

LAID FORTH 

BY WAY OF AFFECTUOUS AND FEELING 
MEDITATION. 



Section I. 

Let no man go about to entertain the thoughts of the great 
^. ... ^ mystery of qodliness but with a ravished heart ; 

I Trni. 111. lb. ^ "^ ^' '^ , 

Great is the an heart filled with a gracious composition ot love 
mysterii of god- ^^^ • ^^^ wonder: such a one, Saviour, I 
Uness — , • 1 B • • 1 1 

desire, through thy grace, to bring with me to the 

meditation of that thine infinitely glorious work of our redemption. 
It was as possible for thy Chosen Vessel, who was by a divine 
ecstasy caught up into paradise, and there heard unutterable 
words, to' express what he saw and heard above, as to set forth 
what was acted by thee here below ; as, therefore, unable either 
to comprehend or utter things so far above wonder, he contents 
himself with a pathetical intimation of that which he saw could 
never be enough admired : great is the mystery of godliness. 

There are great mysteries of art, which the wit and experience 
of skilful men have discovered : there are greater mysteries of 
nature, some part whereof have been described by art and in- 
dustry, but the greater part lies hidden from mortal eyes ; but 
these are less than nothing to the great mystery of godliness. 
For what are these but the deep secrets of the creature ? mean, 
therefore, and finite, Hke itself: but the other are the unfathom- 
able depths of an infinite Deity ; fitter for the admiration of the 
highest angels of heaven, than for the reach of human conception. 

Great were the mysteries of the Law ; neither could the face of 
Moses be seen without his veil : but what other were these but 
the shadows of this great mystery of godliness 1 What did that 

I 2 



116 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

golden ark overspread with glorious cherubims, that gorgeous 
temple, those perfumed altars, those bleeding sacrifices, that 
sumptuous priesthood, but prefigure thee, O blessed Saviour, 
which in the fulness of time shouldest be revealed to the world, 
and make up this great mystery of godliness ? 

There is nothing, dear Jesu, that thou either didst or suf- 
feredst for mankind which is other than mysterious and wonderful : 
but the great and astonishing mystery of godhness is thyself, 
God manifested in the flesh. Lo, faith itself can never be capable 
to apprehend a mystery like this. Thou, who art a Spirit, and 
therefore immaterial, invisible, to expose thyself to the view of 
earthen eyes : thou, who art an infinite Spirit, to be enwrapped in 
flesh : thou, an all-glorious eternal Spirit, to put on the rags of 
human mortality : thou, the great Creator of all things, to become 
a creature : thou, the omnipotent God, to subject thyself to mi- 
serable frailty and infirmity : O mystery, transcending the full 
apprehension of even glorified souls ! If but one of thy celestial 
spirits have, upon thy gracious mission, assumed a visible shape, 
and therein appeared to any of thy servants of old ; it hath been 
held a spectacle of so dreadful astonishment, that it could not be 
consistent with life : even so much honour was thought no less 
than deadly; neither could the patient make any other account, 
than to be killed with the kindness of that glory : what shall we 
say then, that thou, who art the God of those spirits, and there- 
fore infinitely more glorious than all the hierarchy of heaven, 
vouchsafedst, not in a vanishing apparition, but in a settled state 
of many years' continuance, to show thyself in our flesh, and to 
converse with men in their own shape and condition? O great 
mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh : so great, that 
the holy ambition of the heavenly angels could not reach higher 
than the desire to look down into it, i Pet. i. 12. 

Section II. 
But, Saviour, that which raised the amazeme'nt at the ap- 
—Ood mani- pearance of thine angels, was their resplendent glory ; 
fested— whereas, that which heightens the wonder of thy 
manifestation to men, is the depth of thine abasement. Although 
thou wouldest not take the nature of angels, yet why wouldest 
thou not appear in the lustre and majesty of those thy best crea- 
tures? Or, since thou wouldest be a man, why wouldest thou not 
come as the chief of men, commanding kings and princes of the 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 117 

earth to attend thy train ? Thou, whose the earth, is and the ful- 
ness thereof, why wouldest thou not raise to thyself a palace com- 
prised of all those precious stones which lie hid in the close coffers 
of that thine inferior treasury 'i Why did not thy court glitter 
with pearl and gold, in the rich furnitures and gay suits of thy 
stately followers ? why was not thy table furnished with all the 
delicacies that the world could afford ? Saviour, it was the great 
glory of thy mercy, that, being upon earth, thou wouldest aban- 
don all earthly glory ; there could not be so great an exaltation 
of thy love to mankind, as that thou wouldest be thus low abased. 
Manifested then thou wert, but manifested in a despicable ob- 
scurity : whether shall I more wonder, that, being God blessed for 
ever, thou wouldest become man ; or that, condescending to be 
man, thou wouldest take upon thee the shape of a servant; a 
servant to those whose Lord, whose God thou wert ? 

What proportion could there be, blessed Jesu, betwixt a God 
— in the flesh— and a man, betwixt finite and infinite ? The only 
power of thy everlasting and unmeasurable love hath so reduced 
one of these to the other, that both are united in that glorious 
person of thine to make up an absolute Saviour of mankind. 
the height and depth of this supercelestial mystery, that the 
infinite Deity and finite flesh should meet in one subject ! yet so, 
as the humanity should not be absorbed of the Godhead, nor the 
Godhead coarcted by the humanity, but both inseparably united : 
that the Godhead is not humanized, the humanity is not deified ; 
both are indivisibly conjoined ; conjoined so as without confusion ; 
distinguished so as with union. So wert thou, God, manifested 
in the flesh, that thou, the Word of thine eternal Father, wert 
made jiesh, and divelledst amongst us, {and we men beheld thy 
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.,) full of 
grace and truth, John i. 14. Yet so wert thou made flesh, as not 
by conversion into flesh, but as by assumption of flesh to thine 
eternal Deity ^ assumption, not into the nature of the Godhead, but 
into the person of thee who art God everlasting. O mystery of 
godhness, incomprehensibly glorious ! Cease, cease, human curi- 
osity, and where thou canst not comprehend, wonder and adore. 

Section III. 
But, O Saviour, was it not enough for thee to be manifested in 
flesh ? did not that elementary composition carry in it abasement 
enough, without any further addition ? since, for God to become 



118 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

man, was more than for all things to be redacted to nothing ; but 
that in the rank of miserable manhood thou wouldest humble 
thyself to the lowest of humanity, and become a servant ? Shall I 
say more ? I can hear Bildad the Shuhite say, Alan is a worm, 
Job XXV. 6 : and I hear him who was a noble type of thee say, 
as in thy person, / am a ivorm, and no man; a reproach of men, 
and despised of the people. Psalm xxii. 6. Saviour, in how 
despicable a condition do I find thee.exhibited to the world ! lodged 
in a stable ; cradled in a manger ; visited by poor shepherds ; 
employed in an homely trade ; attended by mean fishermen ; 
tempted by presumptuous devils ; persecuted by the mahce of en- 
vious men ; exposed to hunger, thirst, nakedness, weariness, con- 
tempt ! How many slaves, under the vassalage of an enemy, fare 
better than thou didst from ingrateful man, whom thou camest to 
save ! Yet all these were but a mild and gentle preface to those 
thy last sufferings, wherewith thou wert pleased to shut up this 
scene of mortality : there I find thee sweating blood in thine 
agony ; crowned with thorns ; bleeding with scourges ; buffeted 
with cruel hands ; spat upon by impure mouths ; laden with thy 
fatal burden ; distended upon that torturing cross ; nailed to that 
tree of shame and curse ; reviled and insulted upon by the vilest 
of men ; and, at last, that no part of thy precious blood might re- 
main unshed, pierced to the heart by the spear of a late and im- 
pertinent malice. 

Thus, thus, God and Saviour, wouldest thou be manifested in 
the flesh, that the torments of thy flesh and thy spirit might be 
manifested to that world which thou camest to redeem : thus wast 
thou wounded for our transgressions ; thus wast thou bruised 
for our iniquities; thus were the chastisements of our peace 
upon thee; and thus ivith thy stripes are ive healed, Isaiah hii. 5. 
blessed, but still incomprehensible mystery of godliness ; God 
thus manifested in the flesh, in weakness, contempt, shame, pain, 
death ! 

Once only, blessed Jesu, while thou wert wayfaring upon 
this globe of earth, didst thou put on glory ; even upon mount 
Tabor, in thy heavenly transfiguration : then and there did thy 
face shine as the sun, and thy raiment was white as the light. 
Matt. xvii. 2; Mark ix. 2, 3 ; Luke ix. 29. How easy had it been 
for thee to have continued this celestial splendour to thy humanity 
all the whole time of thy sojourning upon earth, that so thou 
mightest have been adored of all mankind ! how would all the 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 119 

nations under heaven have flocked unto thee, and fallen down at 
the feet of so glorious a Majesty I what man in all the world 
would not have said, with Peter, Lord, it is good for us to be 
here ? Or if it had pleased thee to have commanded Moses and 
Elias to wait upon thee in thy mediatory perambulation, and to 
attend thee at Jerusalem, on the mount of Sion, as they did in 
the mount of Tabor, whom hadst thou not in a zealous astonish- 
ment drawn after thee ? But it was thy will, and the pleasure of 
thy heavenly Father, that this glorious appearance should soon 
be overshadowed with a cloud ; and as those celestial guests, now 
in the midst of thy glory, spent their conference about thy bitter 
sufferings, and thine approaching departure out of the world, so 
wert thou, for the great work of our redemption, willing to be 
led from the mount Tabor to mount Calvary, from the height of 
that glory to the lowest depth of sorrow, pain, exinanition. 

Thus vile wert thou, O Saviour, in the flesh ; but, in this 
vileness of flesh, manifested to be God. How did all thy crea- 
tures, in this extremity of thine abasement, agree to acknow- 
ledge and celebrate thine infinite Deity ! The angels came down 
from heaven, to visit and attend thee : the sun pulled in his head, 
as abhorring to look upon the sufferings of his Maker : the earth 
was covered over with darkness, and quaked for the horror of 
that indignity which was offered to thee in that bloody passion : 
the rocks rent ; the graves opened themselves, and sent up their 
long since putrified tenants, to wait upon thee, the Lord of life, 
in thy glorious resurrection : so as thou, in thy despised and cru- 
cified flesh, wert abundantly manifested to be the Almighty God 

of heaven and earth. 

Section IV. 

O blessed Saviour, thou, the true God manifested in the flesh, 
be thou pleased to manifest unto the soul of thy servant the un- 
speakable riches of thy love and mercy to mankind in that great 
work of our redemption. Vouchsafe to affect my heart with a 
livelv sense of that infinite ffoodness of thine towards the wretch- 
edest of thy creatures ; that, for our sake, thou earnest down, and 
clothedst thyself in our flesh ; and clothedst that pure and holy 
flesh with all the miseries that are incident to this sinful flesh of 
ours ; and wast content to undergo a bitter, painful, ignominious 
death from the hands of man ; that by dying thou mightest over- 
come death, and ransom him from that hell to which he was, 
without thee, irrecoverably forfeited, and fetch him forth to life. 



1 20 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

liberty, and glory. let me not see only, but feel, this thy 
great mystery of godliness effectually working me to all hearty 
thankfulness for so inestimable a mercy ; to all holy resolutions 
to glorify thee, in all my actions, in all my sufferings. Didst 
thou, Saviour, being God eternal, take flesh for me ; and shall 
not I, when thou callest, be willing to lay down this sinful flesli 
for thee again? Wert thou content to abridge thyself for the 
time, not only of thy heavenly magnificence, but of all earthly 
comforts, for my sake ; and shall not I, for thy dear sake, re- 
nounce all the wicked pleasures of sin ? Didst thou wear out the 
days of thy flesh in poverty, toil, reproach, and all earthly hard- 
ship ; and shall I spend my time in pampering this flesh in wanton 
dalliance, in the ambitious and covetous pursuit of vain honours 
and deceivable riches? Blessed Lord, thou wert manifested in 
the flesh, not only to be a ransom for our souls, but to be a pre- 
cedent for our lives ; far, far be it from me, thus to imitate the 
great pattern of holiness. Jesu, the Author and Finisher of my 
faith and salvation, teach me to tread in thy gracious steps ; to 
run with patience the race that is set before me ; to endure the 
cross, to despise the shame ; to be crucified to the world ; to 

work all righteousness. 

Section V. 

How easily could I be drawn to envy the privilege of those 
eyes which saw thee here walking upon earth, God and Sa- 
viour, in the days of thy manifesting thyself in flesh ! what an 
happy spectacle was this, to see the face of him in whom the 
Godhead dwelt bodily ! All the world is not worth such a sight. 
Whither could I not wish to go, to see but a just portraiture of 
that shape wherein thou wert pleased to converse with men ? 

But thine holy apostle checks this useless curiosity in me, 
while he says. If we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now 
henceforth know we him, so no more, i Cor. v. j6. It is not the 
outside of thine human form, the view whereof can make us more 
holy or more happy. Judas saw thee, as well as he that lay in 
thy bosom : those saw thee, that maligned and persecuted thee, 
and shall once again see thee to their utmost horror ; see him 
whom they pierced. They saw that flesh in which God was ma- 
nifested; they saw not God manifested in the flesh. It is our 
great comfort and privilege, that it was flesh wherein God was 
manifested ; but it is not in the flesh, but in the Deity, to render 
us blessed. 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 121 

Saviour, I dare not beg of thee so to manifest thyself to me 
as thou didst to thy Chosen Vessel in his way to Damascus ; or 
to thy first martyr, in the storm of his lapidation : these mira- 
culous manifestations are not for my meanness to sue for. But 
let me never cease to crave of thee a double manifestation of thy- 
self to me : be pleased to manifest thyself to me in the clear illu- 
minations of thy Spirit ; let me by the eyes of my faith clearly 
see thee both sprawling in the manger, and walking upon earth, 
and tempted in the wilderness, and arraigned in the judgment- 
hall, and suffering upon Calvary, and rising out of thy tomb, and 
ascending from thy Olivet, and reigning in heaven, and there 
interceding for me : and, after my approaching dissolution, let my 
soul see thee in that glorified flesh wherein thou wert manifested 
to the world, and in the majesty of that all-glorious Deity, which 
assumed it to that ever blessed society of glory. 

Section VI. 

It was thy mercy, God, that thou wouldest not keep up 
thyself close in thine eternal, spiritual, and incomprehensible es- 
sence, unknown to thy creatures upon earth, but that thou 
wouldest be manifested to the world. It was yet thy further 
mercy, that thou wert not only pleased to manifest thyself to 
man, in the wonderful works of thy creation, (since those invisible 
things of thine are understood and clearly seen by the things 
that are made, even thine eternal power and Godhead, Rom. i. 20:) 
but to manifest thyself yet more clearly to us in thy sacred word, 
the blessed oracles of thine eternal truth. But it was the highest 
pitch of thy mercy, that thou wouldest manifest thyself yet more 
to us in the flesh : thou mightest have sent us thy gracious mes- 
sages by the hands of thine angels, those glorious ministering 
spirits that do continually attend thy throne : this would not con- 
tent thee ; but such was thy love to us forlorn wretches, that 
thou wouldest come thyself to finish the work of our redemption. 
Neither didst thou think it enough to come to us in a spiritual 
way, imparting thyself to us by secret suggestions and inspira- 
tions, by dreams and visions, but wouldest vouchsafe openly to be 
manifested in our flesh. 

How then, O my God, how wert thou manifested in the flesh ? 
was not the flesh thy veil ? Heb. x. 20 ; and wherefore serves a 
veil, but to hide and cover ? Did not thy Deity then lie hid and 
obscured, while thou wert here on earth, under the veil of thy 



12!2 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

flesh ? How then wert thou manifested in that flesh wherein thou 
didst he obscured ? Surely thou wert certainly manifested in re- 
spect of thy presence in that sacred flesh of thine, though, for the 
time, thy power and majesty lay hid under the veil. Sometimes 
thou wert pleased that this sun of thy Deity should break forth 
in the glorious beams of Divine operations ; to the dazzling of 
the eyes of men and devils ; to the full eviction of thine omnipo- 
tent power against thy envious gainsayers : at other times, thou 
wert content it should be clouded over with the dim and dusky 
appearances of human infirmity. The more thou wert obscured, 
the more didst thou manifest thy most admii^able humility, and 
unparallelable love to mankind, whose weakness thou disdainedst 
not to take up ; and the more thou didst exert thy power in thy 
miraculous works, the more didst thou glorify thyself, and vindi- 
cate thine Almighty Deity thus manifested in the flesh. that 
thou wouldest enable me to give thee the due praise, both of 
thine infinite mercy in this thine humble obscurity, and of thy 
Divine omnipotence ; who, as thou wert manifested in the flesh, 
so wast also justified in the Spirit. 

Section VII. 
He that should have seen thee, O Saviour, working in Joseph's 
—justified in shop, or walking in the fields or streets of Naza- 
the Spirit— reth, or journeying towards Jerusalem, would have 
looked upon thee as a mere man ; neither did thy garb or counte- 
nance bewray any difference in thee from the ordinary sort of 
men. So did thy Godhead please to conceal itself for a time in 
that flesh wherein thou wouldest be manifested : it was thine all- 
working and coessential Spirit, by whose evident testimonies and 
mighty operations thy Deity was irrefragably made good to the 
world. 

If the doubtful sons of men shall, in their peevish infidelity, be 
apt to renew the question of John^s disciples, Art thou he that 
should come, or shall we look foi* another ? thine ever blessed and 
coeternal Spirit hath fully justified thee, for that only true, absolute, 
perfect Mediator, by whom the great work of man's redemption 
is accomplished. While the gates of hell want neither power, nor 
malice nor subtlety, it is not possible that thy Divine person 
should want store of enemies. These, in all successions of times, 
have dared to open their blasphemous mouths against thy blessed 
Deity ; but against all their hellish oppositions, thou wert still and 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 123 

shalt be ever justified by thy co-omnipotent Spirit ; in those convic- 
tive wonders which thou wroughtest upon earth ; in those miracu- 
lous gifts and graces which thou pouredst out upon men ; in that 
glorious resui-rection and ascension of thine, wherein thou didst 
victoriously triumph over all the powers of death and hell, 

Lo, then, ye perverse Jews and scoffing Gentiles, that are still 
ready to upbraid us with the impotency and suiFerings of a de- 
spised Redeemer ; and to tell us of the rags of his manger, of the 
homehness of his education, of his temptation and transportation 
by the devil, of his contemptible train, of his hunger and thirst, 
of his weariness and indigence, of his whips and thorns, of his 
agony in the garden of Gethsemane, of his opprobrious crucifixion 
in Calvary, of his parted garments and his borrowed grave : is 
not this He, to whoso homely cradle a glorious and super- 
natural star guided the sages of the east for their adoration ? is 
not this He, whose birth, declared by one glorious angel, was ce- 
lebrated by a multitude of the heavenly host with that divine an- 
them of. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good 
tvill towards men? Luke ii. 9 -14; is not this He, that filled the 
world with his divine and beneficial miracles ; healing all diseases 
by his word, restoring hmbs to the lame, giving eyes to the born 
bUnd, casting out devils, raising the dead, commanding winds and 
seas, acknowledged by an audible voice from heaven ? is not this 
He, whom the very ejected devils were forced to confess to be 
the Son of the overliving God ? whom the heaven and all the ele- 
ments owned for their almighty Creator t whose sufferings dark- 
ened the sun, and shook the earth, and rent the rocks in pieces ? 
and lastly, whom the dead saints and the heavenly angels attended 
in his powerful resurrection and glorious ascension ? Saviour, 
abundantly justified in the Spirit against all the mahgnances of 

men and devils ! 

Section VIH. 

If thy mahcious persecutors, whose hand was in thy most cruel 
crucifixion, shall, for the covering of their own shame, blazon 
thee for a deceiver of the people ; how convincingly wert thou 
justified in the Spirit, by the dreadful and miraculous descent of 
the Holy Ghost in the cloven and fiery tongues, and that 
sudden variety of language, for the spreading of the glory of thy 
name over all the nations of the earth ! 

If the unbelieving world, bewitched with their former supersti- 
tion, shall furiously oppose thy name and Gospel in the times im- 



124 The Or eat Mystery of Godliness. 

mediately succeeding ; how notably art thou justified in the Spirit, 
by the sudden stopping of the mouths of their hellish oracles, by 
the powerful predications of thine holy apostles, prophets, evan- 
gelists, pastors, and doctors ; seconded by such undeniable mira- 
cles as shamed and astonished if not won the gainsay ers ! 

But, O Saviour, being thus clearly justified in the Spirit 
against the old spite of hell, with what shame and horror do I see 
thine eternal Godhead called into question by the misgoverned 
wits of certain late misnamed Christians ! who, as if they would 
raise up cursed Arius from his hateful grave, have dared to 
renew those blasphemous cavils against thy sacred person, which, 
with so great authority and full evidence of the Spirit, were long 
since cried down to that hell, whence, to the great contumely of 
heaven, they were most wickedly sent up into the world. Woe 
is me, their damned founder did not send down his soul into that 
fatal draught in a more odious way, than these his followers 
vent themselves upward in most unsavory and pestilent contra- 
dictions to thee, the Lord of life and glory. But even against 
these art thou justified in the Spirit, speaking in thy divine 
scriptures ; whose evident demonstrations do fully convince their 
calumnies and false suggestions, and vindicate thy holy name and 
blessed Deity from all their devilish and frivolous argutations. 

Is there any weak soul, that makes doubt of thy plenary satis- 
faction for his sin, of the perfect accomplishment of the great 
work of man's redemption ? how absolutely art thou justified, O 
blessed Jesu, in the Spirit, in that thou raisedst thyself from the 
dead ; quitting that prison of the grave, whence thou couldest not 
have come till thou hadst paid the utmost farthing, wherein we 
stood indebted to heaven ! 

Saviour, not more concealed in the flesh than manifestly 
justified in the Spirit for my all-suflicient Redeemer, not more 
meekly yielding to death for our o fences than powerfully raised 
up again for our justification, Rom, iv. 25 : how should I bless 
and praise thee, both for thine humble self-dejection in respect of 
thine assumed flesh, and for thy powerful justification in thine 
infinite and eternal Spirit ! that Holy Ghost, whereby thou wert 
conceived in the womb of the Virgin, justified thee in thy life, 
death, resuscitation, Now, then, how confidently can I trust 
thee with my soul, who hast approved thyself so complete and 
almighty a Redeemer ! blessed Jesu, with what assurance do 
I cast myself upon thee for thy present protection, for my future 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 125 

salvation ! how boldly can I defy all the powers of darkness, 

while I am in the hand of so gracious and omnipotent a Mediator ! 

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect ? It is 

God that justifieth, Rom. viii. '^2>' Even thou, the God who wast 

manifested in the flesh and justified in the Spirit, shalt justify 

and save my spirit, soul, and body, in the day of our appearance 

before thee. 

Section IX. 

Saviour, it is no mystery, that, being manifested in the flesh, 

seen of an- thou wert seen of men ; but it is no small part of the 

yds— great mystery of godliness, that thou, who art the 

God of spirits, wert seen by those heavenly spirits, clothed in flesh. 
It could not be but great news to the angels to see their God born, 
and conversing as man with men. For a man to see an angel, is 
a matter of much wonder, but for an angel to see God become 
man, is a far greater wonder : since in this, the change concerns 
an infinite subject ; in the other, a finite though incorporeal. 

But pause here a while, my soul, and inquire a little into 
these strange spectators. Seen of angels ? who or what might 
those be ? Are there any such real, incorporeal, permanent sub- 
stances ; or are they only things of imagination, and extemporary 
representations of the pleasure of the Almighty ? Woe is me, that 
no error may be wanting to this prodigious age, do we live to see 
a reviction of the old Sadduceism, so long since dead and forgot- 
ten 1 Was Gabriel, that appeared and spake to Daniel, (Dan. viii. 
1 6, 17,) nothing but a supernatural phantasm? And what then 
was the Gabriel, that appeared, with the happy news of a Saviour, 
to the blessed Virgin ? What are the angels of those little ones, 
whereof our Saviour speaks, which do always behold the face of 
his Father in heaven ? Matt, xviii. 10. What were those angels that 
appeared to the shepherds with the tidings and gratulations of 
the Saviour born at Bethlehem? Luke ii. 9-15. What was that 
beneficent spirit that visited Peter in the prison ; smote him on 
the side, to wake him from his sleep ; shook off his chains ; threw 
open the iron gate, and rescued him from the bloody hands of 
Herod? Acts xii. 7—10. What are those spirits who shall be 
God's reapers at the end of the world; to cut down the tares, and 
gather the wheat into his barn ? Shortly, what were all those 
spirits, whereof both Testaments are full, which God was pleased 
to employ in his frequent missions to the earth ? were these phan- 
tasms too? Certainly, though there may be many orders, yet 



126 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

there is but one general condition of those angelical attendants on 
the throne of the Almighty. Even in the Old Testament, was it 
a supernatural apparition of fancy, that, in one night, smote all the 
firstborn in the land of Egypt ? was it a supernatural apparition 
of fancy, that, in one night, laid an hundred fourscore and five thou- 
sand Assyrians dead upon the ground ? Could these be any other 
than the acts of living and powerful agents ? It is not for us to 
contend about words : those that are disposed to devise paradoxes 
may frame to themselves what senses they please of their own 
terras: this we are sure of, that the angels are truly existing, 
spiritual, intelligent, powerful, eviternal creatures; whose being 
is not exposed to our sense, but evidenced both to our faith and 
reason ; not circumscribed in any gross locality, but truly being 
where they are, and acting according to their spiritual nature. 

Of these angels, O blessed Saviour^ wert thou seen manifested 
in the flesh, to their wonder and gratulation. That thou, who 
hadst taken our flesh, wert visible, was no whit strange ; herein 
thou wert a plain and happy object to all eyes : but how the an- 
gels, being merely spiritual substances, could see thee, may be 
part of this great mystery. Doubtless, they saw thee, both before 
and ever since thou camest into the world, with eyes, like them- 
selves, spiritual : and not seldom saw thee, being incarnate, with 
the assumed eyes of those bodies wherein they appeared. Thus 
they saw and adored and proclaimed thee in thy first salutation 
of the world ; when thou layest in that homely posture in the 
manger at Bethlehem, singing that sweet and celestial carol at 
thy nativity. Glory he to God in the highest: they saw thee in 
the wild desert, where no creatures appeared to thee, but either 
beasts or devils : there they saw thee, pined with fasting, conflicted 
with the prince of darkness : they saw thee foiling that presump- 
tuous enemy; not without wonder, doubtless, at the boldness of 
that daring spirit, and joyful applause at thy happy victory ; they 
saw thee, but, as knowing there was no use of seconds in this duel 
of thine, unseen of thee, till the full end of that great combat ; 
then they showed themselves to thee, as willing to be known 
to have been the secret witnesses of the fi^ht, and o-lad conoratu- 
lators of thy triumph ; then they came and ministered unto 
thee. Never were they but ready to have visibly attended thee, 
hadst thou been pleased to require so sensible a service ; but 
the state of a servant, which thou choosedst to undergo, suited not 
with the perpetuity of so glorious a retinue. Whether, therefore, 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 127 

they were seen to thee, or not seen, it was their great honour and 
happiness, and a main part of the great mystery of godhness, that 
thou, who art the true God manifested in the flesh, wert seen of 
angels. 

They saw thee in the garden, in thy sad agony ; and if angels 
could have been capable of passion in that state of their glory, 
could have been, no doubt, content to suffer in and with thee. 
With what eyes do we think they looked upon thy bloody sweat, 
and the frowns of thine heavenly Father which they saw bent 
against thee in our persons, for the sin of mankind whicli thou 
earnest to expiate ? Now in this doleful condition, so wert thou 
seen of angels, that the angels were seen of thee : for, lo, there ap- 
peared an angel from heaven strengthening thee, Luke xxii. 43 : 
the deep humiliation of God manifested in the flesh, that 
thou, Jesu, the God and Lord of all the angels of heaven, 
shouldest, in this bloody conflict with thy Father's wrath for our 
sins, need and receive comfort from a created angel, thy servant ! 
Whilst thou wert grappling with the powers of darkness, there 
was no need of aid: only, after the fight, angels came and 
ministered to thee : but now that thou must struggle under the 
wrath of thy Father for man's sin, there was use of the consola- 
tion of one of those angels, whereof thou commandedst millions. 
blessed Saviour, had not the face of thy heavenly Father been 
clouded to thee, standing in the stead of our guiltiness, it had 
been no less than presumption, in any finite power, to tender 
thee any suggestions of comfort ; but now, alas ! those beatifical 
beams were so, for the time, hid from thine eyes ; and the sweet 
influences of light and joy arising therefrom were, for that sad 
instant, suspended ; so as nothing appeared to thee, that while, 
but the darkness of displeasure and horror : now, therefore, the 
comforts of a creature could not be but seasonable and welcome ; 
so that thou disdainedst not to be strengthened by an angel. Ex- 
treme distress looks not so much to the hand that brings supply, 
as to the supply it brings. If but one of thy three drowsy clients 
could have shaken off his sleep, and have let fall to thee some 
word of consolation in that heavy fit of thine, thou hadst not re- 
fused it ; how much less the cordial intimations of an heavenly 
monitor ! Neither was it improper for thee, who was content to 
be made a little inferior to the angels, (Heb. ii. 9,) to receive 
some spiritual aid from the hands of an angel. 

What then, Saviour, was the strengthening which thou re- 



128 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

ceivedst from this officious spirit in this pang of thine agony ? 
Doubtless it was not any communication of an additional power 
to bear up under that heavy pressure of the sins of the whole 
world, which drew from thee those sweats of blood : no angel in 
heaven was able to contribute that to the Son of God : but it was 
a sweet and forcible representation to thy disconsolate humanity 
of the near approach of an happy eluctation out of those torments 
of thy sufferings, and of the glorious crown of thy victory, im- 
mediately succeeding. 

Section X. 

And now, soon after, those angels, that saw thee sweating in 
thine agony, and bleeding on thy cross, saw thee also triumphing 
over death in thy resurrection : they attended thee joyfully in 
the vault of thy sepulchre, and saw thee trampling upon the last 
enemy ; being then suitably habited to so blessed an occasion, in 
white shininfj vestures. 

How gladly were they employed about that most glorious so- 
lemnitv ; both as actors in the service, and as the first heralds 
of thy victories over death ! I find one of them obsequiously 
making ready for thy coming out of those chambers of death 
upon thine Easter morning : rolling away that massy stone, 
which the vain care of thine adversaries had laid, curiously 
sealed, upon the mouth of that cave, for the prevention of thy 
forethreatened resurrection ; and sitting upon it with a counte- 
nance like lightning, and his garment white as snow : the terror 
of whose presence made the guard to shake, and to become as 
dead men, Matth. xxviii. 2-4 : I find two of them no less glo- 
rious, sitting the one at the head, the other at the feet of that 
bed of earth whereon thou hadst newly slept, John xx. 12. By 
these angels wert thou both seen and attended ; and, no doubt, 
but as at thy first coming into the world, when but one angel 
published thy birth, he was seconded by a multitude of the 
heavenly host, praising God with hymns of rejoicing for thy na- 
tivity ; so, when but one or two angels were seen at thy second 
birth, which was thy glorious resurrection, there were more of 
that heavenly company invisibly celebrating the joyful triumph 
of that blessed day ; wherein, having conquered death and hell, 
thou showedst thyself, in a glorified condition, to the redeemed 
world of men. 

After this, when, for the securance of thy resurrection, upon 
which all our faith justly dependeth, thou hadst spent forty days 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 129 

upon earth, 1 find thee upon mount OHvet, at thy most glorious 
ascension, not seen onlj^ but proclaimed and forepromised, in 
thy certain and at least equally-glorious return, by the blessed 
angels : And, behold, while they looked stedfastly toivard heaven 
as he went up, two men stood by them in ivhite apparel ; which 
also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into 
heaven? this same Jesus, ivhich is taken from you into heaven, 
shall so come again as ye have seen him go into heaven, 
Acts i. lo, II. 

But, Saviour, these views of thee by thine angels hitherto 
were but special, and visible even by bodily eyes : how do I, by 
the eyes of my soul, see thee both attended up in that heavenly 
progress, and welcomed into thine empyreal heaven by all the 
host of those celestial spirits ! no small part of whose perpetual 
happiness it is to see thee in thy glorified humanity sitting at the 
right hand of Majesty : there they enjoy thee ; there they sing 
continual Hallelujahs to him, that sitteth upon the throne, and 
unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. 

Section XI. 
If thine angels, blessed Jesu, desired to look into this great 
— preached ^^^ ^^^P ^jstery of the gospel, i Pet. i. 12, their 
unto the Gen- longing is satisfied in the sight of thy blessed in- 
'^ carnation, and the full accomplishment of the great 

office of thy Mediatorship ; since, now unto the principalities and 
poiuers in heavenly places is made known the manifold wisdom 
of God, in this wonderful work of man^s redemption, Eph. iii. ic : 
which from the beginning of the ivorld hath been hid in God, who 
created all things by thee, Eph. iii. 9. But that the unsearchable 
riches of Christ should be preached to the Gentiles, (Eph. iii. 8,) 
how marvellous an accession is it to the greatness of this divine 
mystery of godliness ! Of old, in Judah luas God known : his name 
was great in Israel: in Salem was his tabernacle, and his 
dwellingplace in Sion, Psalm Ixxvi. 1,2: but, in the mean while, 
we miserable Gentiles sat in darkness and in the shadow of 
death, without God in the 'world ; exposed to the displeasure of 
heaven; tyrannized over by the powers of hell; strangers from 
the covenants of promise ; forlorn, without hope of mercy, Eph. 
ii. 1 2. That, therefore, O Saviour, thou vouchsafedst, in the ten- 
der bowels of thine infinite compassion, to look down from heaven 

BP. HALL, VOL. Vin. K 



130 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

upon us ; and^ at the last, graciously to visit us in the clear reve- 
lation of the saving truth of thy gospel ; to break down the par- 
tition-wall, whereby we were excluded from any participation 
with thee ; to own us for thy people, and to admit us unto the 
fellowship of thy saints : the wonderful mystery of godliness, 
eifectuallv manifested to us outcast Gentiles, to our conversion, 
to our eternal salvation ! 

What a veil, God, was spread over all nations ! Isaiah xxv. 7 : 
a dark veil of ignorance, of error, of impiety. How did our fore- 
fathers walk in their own ways ; following the sinful lusts of their 
own hearts ; worshipping dumb idols ; Siicrificing to all the host 
of heaven ; oifering, not their substance only, but their sons and 
daughters to devils ! It was thine own infinite goodness that 
moved thee to pity our woful and despaired condition ; and to 
send thine eternal Son into the world, to be no less a light to 
lighten the Gentiles, than to he the glory of thy j^eople Israel, 
Luke ii. 32. 

How fully hast thou made good thy gracious promises, long 
since pubhshed by thy holy prophets! It shall come, that I will 
gather all nations and tongues ; and they shall come and see 
my glory, Isaiah Ixvi. 1 8. And again. It shall come to pass in 
the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's hov^e shall be 
established in the toj) of the mountains, and shall be exalted 
above the hills ; and all nations shall flow to it : and many 
people shall go, and say, Come ye, let us go up to the mountain 
of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach 
us his ways, and we will lualk in his paths, Isaiah ii. 2, 3. And 
again, Behold, thus saith the Lord, I ivill lift up my hand to 
the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people ; and they 
shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be 
carried upon their shoulders, Isaiah xhx. 22. And again, Behold, 
thou shalt call a nation, that thou knowest not, and nations that 
know not thee shall run unto thee, because of the Lord thy God, 
and for the Holy One of Israel ; for he hath glorified thee, Isaiah 
Iv. 5. blessed then, ever blessed be thy name, God, that thou 
wouldest vouchsafe to be made known amono- us Gentiles : Give 
unto the Lord, ye kindreds of the people, give unto the Lord 
glory and strength : give unto the Lord the glory due unto his 
name, Psalm xcvi. 7, 8. All the earth shall ivorship thee, 
and shall sing unto thee ; they shall sing unto thy name, Psalm 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 131 

Ixvi. 4. All the ends of the tvorJd shall remember, and turn unto 
the Lord ; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worshi]) 
before thee, Psalm xxii. 27. 

How did we, Saviour, of old lie under the pity and contempt 
of those thy people which challenged a peculiarity of thy favour ! 
We have a little sister, said thy Jewish spouse, and she hath no 
breasts : what shall xve do for our sister when she shall be 
spoken for? Cant. viii. 8. Take no thought for us, thou once 
beloved synagogue of the Jews : thy little sister is not only 
spoken for, but contracted ; but happily married to her Lord 
and Saviour; having been betrothed to him /or ever, in right- 
eousness, and in judgynent, and in lovingkindness, and in mer- 
cies, Hosea ii. 19 : so as we can now return our pity to thee, and 
say, " We had an elder sister, which had breasts ; but her breasts 
are long since wrinkled and dried up : what shall we do for our 
sister in these days of her barrenness and just neglect? We 
shall surely pray for our sister, that God would be pleased to 
return to her in his compassion of old, and restore her to the 
happy state of her former fruitfulness/' W^e follow them with 
our prayers ; they us, with malice and despite. With how en- 
vious eyes did they look upon those first heralds of the gospel, 
who carried the glad tidings of salvation to the despised Gentiles ! ' 
What cruel storms of persecution did they raise against those 
blessed messengers whose feet deserved to be beautiful ! wherein 
their obstinate unbelief turned to our advantage : for, after they 
had made themselves unworthy of that gospel of peace, that 
blessing was instantly derived upon us Gentiles, and we happily 
changed conditions with them. The natural branches of the good 
olive tree being cut off, we, that were of the wild olive, contrary 
to nature, are graffed in, Rom. xi. 17. the goodness and se- 
verity of God! on them ivhich fell, severity; on us, which suc- 
ceeded, goodness, ver. 22. They were once the children, and 
we the dogs under the table ; the crumbs were our lot, the 
bread was theirs. Now is the case, through their wilful incre- 
duhty, altered : they are the dogs, and we the children ; we sit 
at a full table while their hunger is not satisfied with scraps. 
The casting away of them was the reconciling of the world, ver. 
I/; ; their fall, our exaltation. It is not for us to be highminded, 
but to fear, ver. 20. 

The great sheet with four corners is let down from heaven with 
all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and creeping things, 

K 2 



132 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

and fowls of the air : we may kill and eat without any difference 
of clean or unclean, but even of clean meats we may surfeit, 
Acts X. n, 12. O Saviour, it is thy great mercy that thou hast 
been thus long preached amongst us Gentiles ; that w^e, in the re- 
mote ends of the world, have seen the salvation of our God : but 
if we shall abuse thy graces to wantonness, and walk unanswerably 
to this freedom of thy gospel, how both just and easy is it for thee 
to withdraw these blessings from us, and to return us to the woful 
condition of our old forlornness ! O, let it not be enough that thou 
art preached amongst us Gentiles, but do thou work us to an holy 
obedience of thy blessed gospel : reclaim us from our abominable 
hcentiousness of hfe. from our hellish heresies of opinion, and teach 
us to walk worthy of that great salvation which thou hast held 
forth unto us : so shall it be our happiness that thou wert preached 
to us Gentiles ; otherwise our condemnation shall be so much the 
deeper, as our light hath been more clear and our means more 

powerful. 

Section XII. 

So poor and despicable, Saviour, wouldest thou have thy 
—believed on coming in the flesh, that it is no marvel if the vain 
vw the woi'ld— ^orld utterly disregarded thee ; for what is the 
misjudging world led by, but by outward pomp and magnificence? 
Yea, thy very domestic followers, after so long acquaintance with 
thy person and doctrine, even when thou wert risen from the 
dead, could think of the royalty of a temporal kingdom to be re- 
stored to Israel ; and still the perverse generations of Jewish in- 
fidels, after the conviction of so many hundred years, gape for an 
eartlily monarchy of their expected Messiah. That therefore ap- 
pearing to the world in so contemptible means, so born, so living, 
so dying, thou shouldest be universally believed on in the ivorld, 
is the just wonder of the mystery of godliness. 

It was the largeness of thy divine bounty, to allow thy gospel 
preached to every creature ; but, alas ! it is liberally preached, 
sparingly received : Who hath believed our report, and to ivhom 
is the arm of the Lord revealed? Isaiah hii. i. It was the com- 
plaint of thy Chosen X'^essel. the doctor of the Gentiles, We preach 
Christ crucified, to the Jeius a sturablingblock, to the Greeks 
foolishness, i Cor. i. 23. What a power therefore is there in the 
mystery of godliness, that thou art not preached only, but believed 
on in the world ! 

Hadst thou exhibited .thyself in the magnificence and majesty 



Tlie Great Mystery of Godliness. 133 

of the Son of God, attended either with the glorious angels of 
heaven or the mighty monarchs of the earth, scattering honours 
and riches upon thy followers in abundance, how large a train 
wouldest thou have had, how would all the earth have rung with 
hosannas to the Highest ! Matt. xxi. 9 : but now, that thou wouldest 
come as the Son of man, in the homeliest condition of birth, edu- 
cation, life, and death ; not having so much as an house wherein 
to put thy head, or a grave wherein to lay thy dead body ; now 
that thou wouldest suffer thyself to be spat upon, scourged, cruci- 
fied, reviled ; that the stubborn hearts of men should be so con- 
vinced by the truth and power of thy Deity, that thou art believed 
on in the world, is the great mystery of godliness. 

The powers of darkness could not but see their kingdom shaken 
by thy coming down to the earth upon this errand of thy medi- 
ation : how busy and violent, therefore, were those gates of hell 
in opposing so glorious a work ! How did they stir up cruel ty- 
rants in the first dawning of thy gospel furiously to persecute this 
way unto death ! What exquisite torments of all kinds did they 
devise for the innocent professors of thy name ! How drunken was 
the earth with the blood of thy martyrs in all parts I And when 
they saw how little force could prevail, since this palm tree grew 
the more by depression, how did they set their wits on work in 
attempting by fraud to bring about their cursed designs ! How 
cunningly did they go about to undermine that wall which they 
could not batter ! Now whole troops of the skilfullest engineers of 
hell are sent up by damned heresies to blow up and overthrow 
that truth which they could not beat down. One while thine 
eternal Deity, another while thy sacred humanity is impugned 
by those who yet style themselves Christians : one while either of 
thy natures, another while thy entire person is laid at by those 
that profess themselves thy friends and clients : one while thine 
offices, another while thy scriptures, are opposed by those who 
yet would seem thine. And though their insinuations have been 
so craftily carried and their colours so well laid, that no small part 
of the world hath been for the time beguiled by them, and drawn 
into a plausible misbelief; yet still great hath the truth ever been, 
and ever prevailed ; happily triumphing over those damnable he- 
resies that have dared to lift up their head against her, and chasing 
them into their hell ; so as, in spite of men and devils, the great 
mystery of godliness is gloriously vindicated, and God manifested 
in weak flesh is believed on in the world. 



Iti4 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

Section XIII. 

The world is not all of one making : there is a world of crea- 
tures not capable of belief; there is a world of men that lieth in 
wickedness, (i John v. 19,) refusing to believe; there is a world 
of faithful souls that do believe, and, in believing^ are saved : and 
0, blessed Saviour, that thou wouldest graciously enlarge this 
world of believers ! 

Woe is me^ what a world of this Avorld of men lies still under 
the damnable estate of unbelief ! Alas, for those poor savage 
Indians that know knothing of a God ; which, out of their fear 
and tyrannical superstition, worship devils that they may not hurt 
them : for those ignorant and wofully bhndfolded Mahometans, 
that are not allowed to see any more than one blink of thee as a 
great Prophet, being taught to blaspheme thy Deity, and to en- 
slave their faith to a wretched impostor : for those obstinate Jews, 
that are wilfully blind, and will not see the light of that truth 
concerning thee their Messiah, which shineth forth clearly to them 
in the writings of the prophets, in the undeniable accomplishment 
of all former predictions, in the powerful conviction of miraculous 
works. What Christian is there whose bowels do not yearn, whose 
heart doth not bleed, at the thought of so many millions of miserable 
unbehevers ! 

thou, the God of infinite mercy and compassion, in whose 
hands are all the hearts of the sons of men, look graciously from 
heaven upon the dark souls of these poor infidels, and enlighten 
them with the saving knowledge of the great mystery of godliness : 
let the beams of thy gospel break forth unto them, and work them 
to a sound belief in thee their God, manifested in the flesh. 
Fetch home into thy fold all those that belong to thy merciful 
election : bring in the fulness of the Gentiles, Rom. xi. 25 : gather 
together the outcasts of Israel, Psalm cxlvii. 2, and glorify thy- 
self in completing a world of behevers. 

And for us, on whom the ends of the world are come, as we 
have been graciously called to the comfortable notice of this mystery 
of godhness, and have professed and vowed a steadfast belief in 
thy Name ; so keep us, by thy good Spirit, in an holy and constant 
avowance of all those main truths concerning thy sacred Person, 
Natures, and OflSces, unto our last end : for thou seest, blessed 
Jesu, that there is now such an hell of the spirits of error broken 
loose into the world, as if they meant to evacuate this part of the 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 1 ^5 

mystery of godliness, Christ believed on in the world. O do thoUj 
by thy mighty power, restrain and quell these pernicious heresies, 
and send down these wicked spirits back to their chains ; so as 
our most holy faith may ever remain inviolable till the day of thy 
glorious return. 

Neither let us sit down contented that we hold fast and believe 
the mere history of thy life, death, and resurrection ; without 
which as we cannot be saved, so with it alone we cannot : but do 
thou, by thy good Spirit, work and settle in our souls a sound, 
lively, operative, justifying faith in thee, whereby we may not only 
believe on thee as a common Saviour, but believe in thee as ours : 
bringing thee home to our hearts, and confidently relying upon 
thee for the acquittance of all our sins and for our eternal salvation. 
O that thou mightest be thus believed on in the world : and if not 
by them, in the notion of their universality, yet by us, who pro- 
fess thy Name, to thy great glory and our everlasting comfort. 

Section XIV. 
In these occurrences on the earth, great is the mystery ofgod- 
— received up Uness ; but the highest pitch of this great mystery, 
^nto glory. Q gaviour, is, that thou, thus manifested in our 

flesh, wert received up into glory ; even that celestial glory which 
thou enjoyest in the highest heavens, sitting on the right hand of 
Majesty ; seen and adored by all that blessed company of the souls 
of just men made perfect, and the innumerable troops of glorious 
angels, Heb. xii. 22, 23. 

If some erroneous fancies have placed their heaven here below 
upon earth, ours is above ; and so is thine, blessed Jesu, who 
wert taken up in glory. Thou couldest not be taken up to any 
earthly ascent, since thou tookest thy farewell on the top of mount 
Olivet ; but from this globe of earth thou ascendedst through the 
skies to that empyreal heaven ; there thou remainest in glory in- 
finite and incomprehensible. The many and intentive beholders 
of thy last parting did not cast their eyes down into the valley, 
neither did see cause with the fifty sons of the prophets, to seek 
for thee, as they would needs do for Elijah, in valleys and moun- 
tains, 2 Kings ii. 1 6 : they saw and worshipped thee, leisurely as- 
cending up through the region of this lower heaven, till a cloud 
intercepted thee from their sight; neither then could easily be 
taken off, either by the interposition of that dark body or by the 
interpellation of angels. 



136 The Great Mystery of Godliness. 

And now, blessed Saviour, how is my soul ravished with the 
meditation of thy glorious reception into thy heaven ! Surely, if 
the inhabitants of those celestial mansions may be capable of any 
increase of joy, they then both found and showed it when they 
saw and welcomed thee, entering in thy glorified humanity into that 
thy eternal palace of blessedness ; and if there could be any higher 
or sweeter ditty of Hallelujah, it was then sung by the choir of 
angels and saints. And may thy poor servants, warfaring and 
wandering here upon earth, even second them in those heavenly 
songs of praise and gratulations : for wherein stands all our safety, 
hope, comfort, happiness, but in this, that thou, our Jesus, art 
received up into glory ,• and, having conquered all diverse powers, 
sittest on the right hand of God the Father, crowned with honour 
and majesty ? 

Jesu, thou art our head, we are thy body : how can the body 
but participate of the glory of the head ? As for thyself therefore, 
so for us, art thou possessed of that heavenly glory : as thou suf- 
feredst for us, so for us thou also reignest. Let every knee 
therefore bow unto thee, of things in heaven, and things on 
earth, and things under the earth, Phil. ii. lo. blessed be thy 
name for ever and ever : Thine, Lord, is the greatness, and 
the potuer, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty : for 
all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine ; thine is the 
kingdom, Lord, and thou art exalted as head over all, 
T Chron. xxix. it. 

And now, Saviour, what a superabundant amends is made to 
thy glorified humanity for all thy bitter sufferings upon earth ! 
Thine agony was extreme, but thy glory is infinite ; thy cross 
was heavy, but thy crown transcendently glorious ; thy pains 
were unconceivably grievous, but short ; thy glory everlasting ; if 
thou wert scorned by men, thou art now adored by angels ; thou, 
that stoodest before the judgment seat of a Pilate, shalt come, 
in all heavenly magnificence, to judge both the quick and the 
dead : shortly, thou which wouldest stoop to be a servant upon 
earth, rulest and reignest for ever in heaven, as the King of 
eternal glory, 

O then, my soul, seeing thy Saviour is received up into this 
infinite glory, with what intention and fervour of spirit shouldest 
thou fix thine eyes upon that heaven where he lives and reigns. 
How canst thou be but wholly taken up with the sight and 
thought of that place of blessedness? How canst thou abide to 



The Great Mystery of Godliness. 1 37 

grovel any longer on this base earth, where is nothing but vanity 
and vexation, and refrain to mind the things above, where is all 
felicity and glory ? With what longings and holy ambition should- 
est thou desire to aspire to that place of eternal rest and beatitude, 
into which thy Saviour is ascended, and with him to partake of 
that glory and happiness which he hath provided for all that 
love him ! Saviour, it is this clog of wretched infidelity and 
earthliness that hangs heavy upon my soul, and keeps me from 
mounting up into thy presence, and from a comfortable fruition 
of thee. do thou take off this sinful weight from me, and raise 
up my affections and conversation unto thee ; enable me constantly 
to enjoy thee by a lively faith here, till by thy mercy I shall be 
received into glory. 



THE 

INVISIBLE WORLD 
DISCOVERED TO SPIRITUAL EYES, 



AND 



REDUCED TO USEFUL MEDITATION. 



IN THREE BOOKS. 



THE PREFACE. 



As those that flit from their old home, and betake themselves to dwell in 
another country where they are sure to settle, are wont to forget the faces 
and fashions whereto they were formerly inured, and to apply themselves to 
the knowledge and acquaintance of those with whom they shall afterwards 
converse ; so it is here with me : being to remove from my earthly tabernacle, 
wherein I have worn out the few and evil days of my pilgrimage, to an abid- 
ing city above, I have desired to acquaint myself with that invisible world to 
which I am going ; to inter-know my good God, and his blessed angels and 
saints, with whom I hope to pass an happy eternity : and if, by often and 
serious meditation, I have attained, through God's mercy, to any measure of 
lightsome apprehension of them and their blissful condition, I thought it 
could be no other than profitable to my fellow-pilgrims to have it imparted 
unto them. And as knowing we can never be sensible enough of our happi- 
ness, unless we know our own dangers and the vvoful miscarriages of others ; 
nor so fully bless our eyes with the sight of heaven, if we cast not some 
glances upon hell ; I have held it requisite to bestow some thoughts upon 
that dreadful region of darkness and confusion ; that by the former of these 
our desires may be whetted to the fruition of their blessedness, and by the 
other we may be stirred up to a care of avoiding those paths that lead down 
to that second death, and to a continual thankfulness unto that merciful God, 
whose infinite goodness hath dehvered us from that pit of horror and per- 
dition. 



To all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in 
sincerity, grace and peace. 



Dear Brethren, — If I have in a sort taken my leave of the 
world already, yet not of you^ whom God hath chosen out of the 
world, and endeared to me by a closer interest ; so as ye may 
justly expect from me a more special valediction, which I do now, 
in all Christian affection, tender unto you. And as dear friends, 
upon a long parting, are wont to leave behind them some tokens 
of remembrance where they most affect ; so have I thought good, 
before my setting forth on my last journey, to recommend unto 
you these my two final Meditations ; than which, I suppose, no- 
thing could be more proper for me to give, or more like to merit 
your acceptation ; for if we were half way in heaven already, what 
can be a more seasonable employment of our thoughts than the 
Great Mystery of Godliness, which the angels desire to look into ? 
And now, when our bodily eyes are glutted with the view of the 
things that are seen — a prospect which can afford us nothing 
but vanity and vexation — what can be more meet than to feed 
our spiritual eyes with the light of invisible glories ? Make your 
use of them, both to the edifying of j^ourselves in your most holy 
faith, and aspire with me towards that happiness which is laid up 
above for all those that love the appearance of our Lord Jesus. 
Withal, as the last words of friends are wont to bear the greatest 
weight, and to make the deepest impression, so let these hues of 
holy advice, wherewith, after many well meant discourses, I shall 
close up the mouth of the press, find the like respect from you. 

O that I might, in the first place, effectually recommend to you 
the full recovery of that precious legacy of our blessed Saviour, 
peace ; peace with God, peace with men ; next to grace, the best 
of all blessings : yet woe is me, too too long banished from the 
Christian world, with such animosity, as if it were the worst of 
enemies, and meet to be adjudged to a perpetual migration ! 
for a fountain of tears, to bewail the slain of God's people in 
all the coasts of the earth ! How is Christendom become an uni- 
versal Aceldama ! How is the earth every where drenched with 



140 The Invisible World. 

human blood, poured out, not by the hands of cruel infidels, but 
of brethren ! Men need not go so far as Euphrates for the exe- 
cution of Turks and Pagans : Christians can make up an Arma- 
geddon with their own mutual slaughter. Enough, my dear 
brethren, enough ; yea, more than too much, hath been the effu- 
sion of that blood for which our Saviour hath shed his. Let us 
now, at the last, dry up these deadly issues which we liave made, 
and with sovereign balms bind up the wounds we have given. 
Let us now be not more sparing of our tears to wash off the me- 
mory of these our unbrotherly dimications, and to appease the 
anger of that God whose offended justice hath raised war out of 
our own bowels. As our enmity, so our peace, begins at heaven : 
had we not provoked our longsuffering God, we had not thus 
bled, and we cannot but know and believe him that said. When 
a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh his enemies to be at 
peace ivith him, Prov. xvi. 7. O that we could throughly recon- 
cile ourselves to that great and holj' God whom we have irritated 
by our crying sins ; how soon would he, who is the commander of 
all hearts, make up our breaches, and calm and compose our spirits 
to an happy peace and concord ! 

In the next place, give me leave earnestly to exhort you, that 
as we have been heretofore palpably faulty in abusing the mercies 
of our God, for which we have soundly smarted ; so that now, we 
should be so much the more careful to improve the judgments of 
God to our effectual reformation. We have felt the heavy hand 
of the Almighty upon us to purpose ; that our amendment could 
be no less sensible than our sufferings ! But, alas ! my brethren, 
are our ways any whit holier, our obedience more exact, our sins 
less and fewer, than before we were thus heavily afflicted ? May 
not our God too justly take up that complaint which he made 
once by his prophet Jeremiah, Ye have transgressed against me, 
saith the Lord. In vain have I smitten your children; they 
received no correction, Jer. ii. 29, 30. Far be it from us that, 
after so many sad and solemn mournings of our land, any accuser 
should be able to charge us, as the prophet Hosea did his Israel — 
By swearing., and lying, and killing, and stealing, and commit- 
ting adultery^ they break out, and blood touclieth blood, Hos. iv. 2. 
Woe be to us, if, after so many veins opened, the blood remaining 
should not be the purer ! 

Let me have leave, in the third place, to excite you to the 
practice of Christian charity, in the mutual constructions of each 



The Epistle. 1 41 

other's persons and actions ; whicli, I must tell you, we have 
heedlessly violated in the heat of our holy intentions : while 
those which have varied from us in matter of opinion, concerning 
some appendances of religion and outward forms of administra- 
tion, we have been apt to look upon with such disregard, as if 
they had herein forfeited their Christian profession, and were 
utter aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; though, in the 
mean time, sound at the heart, and endeavouring to walk close 
with God in all their ways : whereas the Father of all mercies 
allows a gracious latitude to his children, in all not-forbidden 
paths ; and in every nation and condition of men, he that feareth 
God, and tvorketh righteousness, is accepted with him, Acts x. 
35. Beware we, my dear brethren, lest, while we follow the 
chase of zeal, we outrun charity ; without which, piety itself 
vv^ould be but unwelcome. As for matter of oj^inion in the differ- 
ences of rehgion, wherewith the whole known world, not of Christ- 
ians only, but of men, is wofully distracted, to the great prejudice 
of millions of souls, let this be our sure rule, " Whosoever he be, 
that holds the faiths which was once delivered to the saints, 
(Jude 3,) agreeing therefore with us in all fundamental truths, 
let him be received as a brother :" for there is but one Lord, one 
faith, one baptism; and other foundation can no man lay than 
that ivhich is laid, which is Jesus Christ, i Cor. iii. 11. Let 
those, which will be a devising a new creed, look for a new Sa- 
viour, and hope for another heaven : for us, we know whom we 
have believed. If any man be faulty in the doctrines of super- 
structure, let us pity and rectify his error, but not abandon his 
person. The communion of saints is not so slight, that it should 
be violated by weak mistakings. If any man, through ignorance 
or simplicity, shall strike at the foundation of faith, let us labour, 
by all gentle means and brotherly conviction, in the spirit of 
meekness, to reclaim him : if after all powerful endeavours he 
will needs remain obstinate in his evil way, let us disclaim his 
fellowship, and not think him worthy of a God-speed. But if he 
shall not only wilfully undermine the groundwork of Christian 
faith, by his own damnable opinions, but diffuse his heretical 
blasphemies to the infection of others, let him be cut off by spi- 
ritual censures ; and so dealt with, by public authority, that the 
mischief of his contagion may be seasonably prevented, and him- 
self be made sensible of his heinous crime. In all which proceed- 
ings, just distinction must be made betwixt the seduced soul and 



142 The Invisible World. 

the pestilent seducer ; the one calls for compassion, the other for 
severity. So then, my brethren, let us pity and pray for all 
that have erred and are deceived : let us instruct the ignorant, 
convince the gainsaying, avoid the obstinate, restrain the infec- 
tious, and punish the self-convicted heresiarch. 

In the fourth place, let us, I beseech you, take heed of being 
swayed with self-interests in all our designs. These have ever 
been the bane of the best undertakings, as being not more plausi- 
bly insinuative than pernicious : for that partial self-love, that 
naturally lodges in every man's breast, is ready to put us upon 
those projects which under fair pretences may be extremely 
prejudicial to the pubhc weal; suggesting, not how lawful or ex- 
pedient they may be for the common, but how beneficial to our- 
selves ; drawing us, by insensible degrees, to sacrifice the public 
welfare to our own advantage, and to underwork and cross the 
better counsels of more faithful patriots : whereupon, many flou- 
rishing churches, kingdoms, states, have been brought to miser- 
able ruin. that we could remember, that as all things are 
ours, so we are not our own ; that we have the least interest in 
ourselves, being infinitely more considerable as parts of a com- 
munity than as single persons ; that the main end of our being, 
next to the glory of our Maker, is an universal serviceableness to 
others, in the attaining whereof we shall far more eminently 
advance our own happiness than by the best of our private self- 
seeking endeavours. But withal, it will be meet for us to con- 
sider, that as we are made to serve all, so only in our own station : 
there can be no hope of a continued well-being, without order : 
there can be no order, without a due subordination of degrees 
and diversity of vocations : and in vain shall divers vocations be 
ordained if all professions shall interfere with each other. It is 
the prudent and holy charge of the apostle. Let every man abide 
in the same calling wherein he is called, i Cor. vii. 20. We are 
all members of the same body ; every one whereof hath his proper 
employment: the head is to direct and govern, the feet to walk, 
the eyes to see, the ears to hear. How mad would we think that 
man that should affect to walk on his head, to hear with his eye, 
to see with his ear ! Neither, surely, is it less incongruous for 
men in divine and civil administrations to offer to undertake and 
manage each other"'s functions, in their nature and quality no less 
desperate. So then let us endeavour to advance the common 
good, as that a pious zeal may not draw in confusion ; and that 



The Ejnstle. 14f} 

we may not mistakingly rear up the walls of Babel while we 
intend Jerusalem. Not rehgion only, but policy calls us to en- 
couragement of all useful professions ; and of the sacred so much 
more, as the soul is more precious than all the world beside. 
Heed therefore must be taken, to avoid all means whereby the 
study of learning and knowledge may be any way disheartened ; 
as without which the world would soon be overrun with igno- 
rance and barbarism. All arts, therefore, as being in their kind 
excellent, may justly challenge their own rights, and if they shall 
want those respects which are due to them will suddenly languislj. 
But, above all, as divinity is the queen of sciences, so should it be 
our just shame, that while her handmaids are mounted on horse- 
back she should wait on them on foot. 

Fifthly, as it is our greatest honour that the name of Christ is 
called upon us; so let it, I beseech you, be our care, that our 
profession be not formal, empty, and barren, like the Jewish fig- 
tree, abounding with leaves, void of fruit ; but real, active, fruit- 
ful of all good works, and exemplary in an universal obedience to 
the whole will of God : for it is a scandal never to be enougli 
lamented, that any of those who are saints by calling (such we 
all are or should be) should hug some darling sin in their bosom, 
which at last breaks forth to the shame of the gospel and to the 
insultation of Gath and Ascalon. Woe be to us, if we shall thus 
cause the name of our God to be evil spoken of ! There are too 
many of those whom I am loath and sorry to style heathen- Christ- 
ians ; Christians in name, heathens in conversation : these, as 
they come not within the compass of my dedication, (for, alas \ 
how should they love the Lord Jesus when they know him not ?) 
so I can heartily bewail their condition, who, like Gideon^s fleece, 
continue altogether dry under so many sweet showers of grace ; 
wishing unto their souls, even thus late, a sense of the efficacy of 
that water which was once poured on their faces. These, if they 
run into all excess of riot, what can be other expected from them ? 
but for us, that have learned to know the great mystery of god- 
liness, and have given up our name to a strict covenant of obedi- 
ence, if we shall suffer ourselves to be miscarried into any enor- 
mous wickedness, we shall cause heaven to blush and hell to 
triumph. 0, therefore, let us be so much the more watchful over 
our ways, as our engagements to the name of our God are greater, 
and the danger of our miscarriages more deadly. 

Lastly, let me beseech and adjure you, in the name of the Lord 



14-t The Epistle. 

JesuSj to be careful in matter of religion ; to keep within the due 
bounds of God^s revealed will : a charge, which I would to God 
were not too needful in these last days ; Avherein, who sees not 
what spirits of error are gone forth into the world for the seduc- 
ing of simple and ungrounded souls ? Woe is me, what throngs 
are carried to hell by these devilish impostors ! One pretends 
visions and revelations of new verities^ which the world was not 
hitlierto worthy to know : another boasts of new lights of uncouth 
interpretations, hidden from all former eyes. One despises the 
dead letter of the scriptures ; another distorts it to his own erro- 
neous sense. O the prodigies of damnable, heretical, atheous 
fancies, which have hereupon infested the Christian church ; for 
which, what good soul doth not mourn in secret? the danger 
whereof ye shall happily avoid, if 3'e shall keep close to the writ- 
ten word of our God, which is only able to make you wise to sal- 
vation. As our Saviour repelled the devil, so do ye the fanatic 
spirits of these brainsick men, with, It is written : let those who 
would be wiser than God justly perish in their presumption. 
My soul for yours, if ye keep j^ou to St. Paul's guard, 7iot to be 
wise above that which is written. 1 could easily, out of the ex- 
uberance of my Christian love, overcharge you with multiplicity 
of holy counsels ; but I would not take a tedious farewell. May 
the God of Heaven bless these and all other wholesome admoni- 
tions, to the furtherance of your souls in grace : and may his 
good Spirit ever lead and guide us in all such ways as may be 
pleasing to him, till we happily meet in the participation of that 
incomprehensible glory which he hath prepared for all his saints. 
Till when, farewell ; from your fellow pilgrim in this vale of 
tears, 

JOS. HALL, 



THE INVISIBLE WORLD. 



THE FIRST BOOK:— OF GOD AND HIS ANGELS. 



Sect. I. — That there is an Invisible World. 

Who can think other, but that the great God of heaven loseth 
much glory by our ignorance ? for how can we give him the 
honour due to his Name while we conceive too narrowly of him 
and his works ? To know him as he is, is past the capacity of our 
finite understanding : we must have other eyes to discern that 
incomprehensible essence : but, to see him in his divine emana- 
tions and marvellous works, which are the back parts of that 
glorious Majesty, is that whereof we may be capable and should 
be ambitious. Neither is there any thing in this world that can 
so much import us ; for wherefore serves the eye of sense, but 
to view the goodly frame and furniture of the creation ? where- 
fore serves the eye of reason and faith, but to see that Hvely and 
invisible power which governs and comprehends it ? 

Even this sensible and material world, if we could conceive 
aright of it, is enough to amaze the most enlightened reason : for 
if this globe of earth, in regard of the immense greatness of it, is 
wont, not unjustly, to be accounted a world, what shall we say of 
so many thousand stars, that are, for the most part, bigger than 
it ? How can we but admire so many thousand worlds of hght 
rolling continually over our heads, all made by the omnipotent 
power, all regularly guided by the infinite providence of the 
great God ? How poorly must that man needs think of the work- 
manship of the Almighty, that looks upon all these but as so 
many torches, set up in the firmament every evening, only so big 
as they seem ! and with what awful respects must he needs be 
carried to his Creator, that knows the vastness and perpetually- 
constant movings of those lightsome bodies, ruled and upheld only 
by the mighty Word that made them ! 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIIL L 



146 The Invisible World. [Book T. 

There is store of wonders in the visible^ but the spiritual and 
intelligible world is that which is more worthy to take up our 
hearts ; both as we are men, endued with reason, and as regene- 
rate, enlightened by faith, being so much more excellent than the 
other, by how much more it is removed from all earthly means of 
apprehension. Brute creatures may behold these visible things 
perhaps with sharper eyes than we ; but spiritual objects are so 
utterly out of their reach, as if they had no being. Nearest, 
therefore, to beasts are those men who suffer themselves to be so 
altogether led by their senses, as to believe nothing but what 
is suggested by that purbhnd and unfaithful informer. Let such 
men doubt whether they have a soul in their body, because their 
eye never met with it^ ; or that there are any stars in the firma- 
ment at noonday, because they appear not ; or that there is any 
air wherein they breathe, because nothing appears to them but 
an insensible vacuity. 

Of all other, the Sadducees had been the most dull and sottish 
heretics that ever were, if, as some have construed them, they 
had utterly denied the very being of any spirits. Sure, as learned 
Cameron^ pleads for them, they could not be so senseless : for 
behoving the books of Moses, and being conscious of their own 
animation, their bosoms must needs convince them of their spi- 
ritual inmate ; and what but a spirit could enable them to argue 
against spirits ? and how could they hold a God, and no spirit ? 
It was bad enough that they denied the immortality and constant 
subsistence of those angelical, immaterial substances : an opinion 
long since hissed out, not of the school of Christianity only, but 
of the very stalls and sties of the most brutish paganism : al- 
though that, very long since, as is reported by Hosius and Pra- 
teolus, that cursed glazier of Ghent,. David George ", durst wick- 
edly rake it out of the dust; and of late some sceptics of our own 
have let fall some suspicious glances this way. 

Surely, all that know they have souls must needs believe a 
world of spirits, which they see not ; if from no other grounds, 
yet out of that analogy which they cannot but find betwixt this 
lesser and that greater world. For as this little world, man, 
consists of an outward visible body and an inward spiritual soul, 

^ " Nulla visibilia nisi per invisibilia <^ [Bom at Delft ; gave name to a sect 

videntur : telle mentem, qu£e non vide- which he afterwards established at Basle, 

tur; et incassum patebit oculus." Greg. 1544.] 

^ Camer. in Act. xxiii. 8. 



Of God and his Angels. 147 

which gives life and motion to that organical frame, so possessing 
all parts, that it is wholly in all and in each part wholly: so 
must it also be in this great universe, the sensible and material 
part whereof hath being and moving from those spiritual powers, 
both supreme and subordinate, which dwell in it, and fill and 
actuate it. Every illuminated soul, therefore, looks about him 
with no other than St. PauFs eyes ; whose profession it is, We 
look not at the things which are seen, hut at the things which 
are not seen : for the things ivhich are seen are temporal ; hut 
the things which are not seen are eternal, i Cor. iv. 1 8. 

Sect. II. — The Distrihution of the Invisible World. 

I cannot quite mislike the conceit of Reuchlin and his Cabala, 
seconded by Galatinus, that as in an egg the yolk lies in the 
midst encompassed round with the white, and that again by a 
film and shell ; so the sensible world is inclosed within the in- 
telligible : but, withal, I must add, that here is not a mere invo- 
lution only, but a spiritual permeation and inexistence; yet with- 
out all confusion. For those pure and simple natures are not 
capable of mingling with gross, material substances : and the God 
of order hath given them their own separate essences, ofiices, 
operations ; as for the managing of their own spiritual common- 
wealth within themselves, so for the disposing, governing, and 
moving of this sensible world. As, therefore, we shall foully mis- 
conceive of a man, if we shall think him to be nothing but a body, 
because our eyes see no more ; so we shall no less grossly err, if, 
beholding this outward fabric, we shall conceive of nothing to be 
in this vast universe but the mere lifeless substance of the heavens 
and elements, which runs into our sight : those hvely and active 
powers that dwell in them could not be such if they were not 
purely spiritual. 

Here then, above and beyond all worlds, and in this material 
and intelhgible world, our illuminated eyes meet first with the 
God of spirits ; the Deity, incomprehensible ; the Fountain of all 
life and being ; the infinite and self-existing Essence ; one most 
pure, simple, eternal Act ; the absolute, omnipotent, omnipresent 
Spirit : who in himself is more than a world of worlds ; filling 
and comprehending both the spiritual and sensible world ; in com- 
parison of whom, this All is nothing, and but from him had been 
and were nothing. Upon this blessed object, O my soul, may thy 
thoughts ever dwell : where the more they are fixed, the more 

L 2 



148 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

shall they find themselves ravished from the regard of all sensible 
things, and swallowed up with an admiration of that which they 
are still farther oif from comprehending'^. 

Next to this All-glorious and Infinite Spirit, they meet with 
those immaterial and invisible powers, who receive their original 
and continuance, their natures and offices, from that King of 
Glory : each one whereof is so mighty, as to make up a world of 
power alone ; each one so knowing, as to contain a world of wis- 
dom ; and all of them so innumerably many, that their number 
is next to infinite ; and all this numberless number is so perfectly 
united in one celestial policy, that their entire communion, under 
the laws and government of their sovereign Creator, makes them 
a complete world of spirits, invisibly living and moving both 
within and above this visible globe of the material world. 

After these, we meet with the glorified souls of the just ; who, 
now let loose from this prison of clay, enjoy the full liberty of 
heaven ; and, being at last reunited to their then immortal bodies 
and to their most glorious Head, both are and possess a world of 
everlasting bliss. 

Last of all, may thy thoughts fall upon those infernal powers 
of darkness, the spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places ; 
whose number, might, combination, makes up a dreadful world 
of evil angels, conflicting where they prevail not, and tormenting 
where they overcome. 

These, together with the reprobate souls whom they have cap- 
tived, are the most horrible and woful prospects of mischief and 
misery which either world is subject unto. 

Now all and every of these, howsoever in respect of largeness 
they may well pass for so many several worlds ; yet, as we are 
wont to account the whole globe of heaven and earth, and the 
other inclosed elements, though vast in their several extents, to 
make up but one sensible world; so shall we consider all the 
entire specifications of spirits but as ranked in so many regions 
of one immaterial and intelligible world. 

Wherefore, let us first silently adore that mundum archety- 
pum, that one transcendent, self-being, and infinite essence, in 
three most glorious persons, the blessed Deity, which filleth 
heaven and earth with the majesty of his glory, as veiled with 

^ " Onme tempus quo de Deo non riis, Oper. Bern. t. v. p. 817. Ed. Ben. 
cogitat, perdidisse se computat." — Bern. Paris. 1719-] 
de spec. nion. [Arnulfi Monachi de Boe- 



I 



Of God and his Angels. 14<9 

the beams of intinitenessj and hid in an inaccessible light : and 
let us turn our eyes to the spiritual guard, the invisible attend- 
ants of that Divine Majesty ; without the knowledge and right 
apprehension whereof, we shall never attain to conceive of their 
God and ours as we ought. 

But, ye blessed, immortal, glorious spirits, who can know 
you, but he that is of you ? Alas ! this soul of mine knows not 
itself, how shall it know you ? Surely, no more can our minds 
conceive of you, than our eyes can see you : only, since he that 
made you hath given us some little glimpse of your subdivine 
natures, properties, operations, let us weakly, as we may, recount 
them to his glory in yours. 

Sect. III. — The Angels of Heaven : their Numbers. 

The good Lord forgive me, for that, amongst my other offences, 
I have suffered myself so much to forget, as his divine presence, 
so the presence of his holy angels. It is, I confess, my great sin, 
that I have filled mine eyes with other objects, and have been 
slack in returning praises to my God, for the continual assistance 
of those blessed and beneficent spirits, which have ever graciously 
attended me, without intermission, from the first hour of my con- 
ception to this present moment ; neither shall ever, I hope, absent 
themselves from my tutelage and protection, till they shall have 
presented to my poor soul her final glory. that the dust and 
clay were so washed out of my eyes, that I might behold, to- 
gether with the presence, the numbers, the beauties, and excel- 
lencies of those my ever-present guardians ! 

When we are convinced of the wonderful mao-nitude of those 
goodly stars which we see moving in the firmament, we cannot 
but acknowledge, that if God had made but one of them, he 
could never have been enough magnified in his power ; but when 
our sense joins with our reason, to force upon us, withal, an ac- 
knowledgment of the infinite numbers of those great luminaries, 
now, we are so far to seek of due admiration, that we are utterly 
lost in the amazement at this stupendous proof of omnipotence. 

Neither is it otherwise with the invisible host of heaven. If 
the power of one angel be such, that he were able, at his Maker^s 
appointment, to redact the world to nothing ; and the nature of 
any one so eminent, that it far surmounts any part of the visible 
creation ; what shall we say to those next-to-infinite numbers of 



150 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

miglity and majestical spirits wherewith the great God of heaven 
hath furnished his throne and footstool ? 

I know not upon what grounds that (bv some, magnified) pro- 
phetess^, could so precisely compute, that if all men should be 
reckoned up, from the first Adam to the last man that shall stand 
upon the earth, there might be to each man assigned more than 
ten angels. Ambrose's account is yet fuller ; who makes all man- 
kind to be that one lost sheep in the parable, and the angels 
(whose choir the great Shepherd left for a time, to come down to 
this earthly wilderness) to be the ninety and nine. Lo here, 
well near a hundred for one. Yet even that number is poor, in 
comparison of the reckoning of him^ who pretends to fetch it 
from the Chosen Vessel rapt into paradise ; who presumes to tell 
us there are greater numbers of angels in every several rank, 
than there is of the particular of whatsoever material things in 
this world. The bishop of HerbipolisS instanceth boldly in stars, 
in leaves, in spires of grass. But sure I am, had that Dennis of 
Areopagus been in St. Paul's room, and supplied his 'rapture, he 
could no more have computed tlie number of angels, than the 
best arithmetician, standing upon an hill, and seeing a huge 
Xerxes-like array swarming in the valley, can give a just reckon- 
ing of the number of those heads. 

Surely, when our Saviour speaks of more than twelve legions 
of angels (Matt. xxvi. S?)-)y ^^^ doth not say, how many more : if 
those twelve, according to Jerome's (though too short) computa- 
tion, amount to seventy two thousand, the more than twelve were 
doubtless more than many miUions. He that made them can tell 
us. The beloved disciple in Patmos, as by inspiration from that 
God, says, / beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round 
about the throne and the beasts and the elders : and the number 
of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands oj 
thousands, Rev. v. 1 1 . Now the elders were but twenty-four, 
and the beasts were but four : all those other thousands were 
angels : and if so many were about his throne, how many do we 
think were about his missions ! Before him, the prophet Daniel 
{betwixt whom and the evangelist there is so perfect correspond- 
ence, that we may well say, Daniel was the John of the Old 
Testament, and John the Daniel of the New) hath made the like 

c Brigit. 1. Revelat. iv. f Dionys. Areopag. [De caelest. Hierarch. 1. i. c. 14.] 

S Fomer. de Cust. Angel. Serm. IV. 



Of Qod and his Angels. 151 

reckoning : Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten 
thousand times ten thousand stood before him, Dan. vii. lo. But 
Bildad the Shuhite in one word says more than all. Is there any 
number of his armies ? Job xxv. 3. 

Lo, his armies are past all number : how much more his several 
soldiers ! So as it may not perhaps seem hard to believe Diony- 
sius, that the angels but of one rank are more than can be com- 
prehended by any arithmetical number ; or Gregory, who de- 
termines them numerable only to God that made them, to men 
innumerable. 

great God of heaven, how doth this set forth the infinite 
Majesty of thine Omnipotent Deity, to be thus attended ! We 
judge of the magnificence of princes according to the number 
and quality of their retinue and guard, and other their military 
powers ; and yet each one of these hath an equally absolute life 
and being of his own, receiving only a pay from his sovereign : 
what shall we then think of thee, the great King of eternal glory, 
that hast before thy throne innumerable hosts of powerful and 
glorious spirits, of thine own making and upholding ? 

And how safe are we under so many and so mighty protec- 
tors ! It might be perhaps well meant, and is confessed to be 
seconded with much reverend antiquity, the conceit, that each 
man hath a special angel designed for his custody ^ : and if but 
so, we are secure enough from all the danger of whatsoever 
hostile machinations ; however this may seem some scanting of 
the bountiful provision of the Almighty, who hath pleased to ex- 
press his gracious respects to one man in the allotment of many 
guardians : for, if Jacob speak of one angel, David speaks of 
more ; He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in 
all thy ways, Psalm xci. 1 1. And even those which have thought 
good to abet this piece of platonic divinity concerning the single 
guardianship of angels, have yet yielded, that, according to se- 
veral relations, each one hath many spiritual keepers. Insomuch 
as the forecited Fornerus ', late bishop of Wurtzburg, durst as- 
sure his auditors, that each of them had ten angels at least as- 
signed to his custody, according to the respects of their subordi- 
nate interests ; besides their own person, of their family, parish, 

^ " Cuique electo ordinarie certum ' " Ex quo facile colligitur, ex vobis 
propriumque angelum, qui perpetuus unumquemque habere plus quam de- 
sit ejus custos et comes." — Zancli. de cemAngelos." — Forner. de Custod. Ang. 
Operibus creat. 1. iii. c. [5. [Thesis, Ha- Serm. V. p. 56. 
nov. 1697. p. 186.] 



152 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

fraternity, city, diocese, country, office, church, world. Yet even 
this computation is niggardly and pinchingj, since the abundant 
store and bounty of the Almighty can as well afford centuries as 
decades of guardians. 

Howsoever, why should it not be all one to us : since there is 
no less safety in the hands of one than many ; no less care of us 
from many than from one ? Should but one angel guard millions 
of men, his power could secure them no less than a single charge ; 
but now that we are guarded with millions of angels, what can 
the gates of hell do ? 

But what number soever be employed about us, sure I am, 
that, together with them, those that attend the throne of their 
Maker make up no less, as Nazianzen justly accounts them, than 
a world of spirits : a world, so much more excellent than this 
visible, by how much it is more abstracted from our weak senses. 

ye blessed spirits, ye are ever by me, ever with me, ever 
about me : I do as good as see you ; for I know you to be here : 
I reverence your glorious persons; I bless God for you ; 1 
walk awfully, because I am ever in your eyes ; I walk confi- 
dently, because I am ever in your hands. How should I be 
ashamed, that in this piece of theology I should be outbid by 
very Turks ; whose priests shut up their devotions with an ap- 
precatory mention of your presence'^, as if this were the upshot 
of all blessings ! I am sure it is that wherein, next to my God 
and Saviour, I shall ever place my greatest comfort and confi- 
dence ; neither hath earth or heaven any other besides that looks 
like it. 

Sect. IV. — The Power of Angels. 

Multitudes, even of the smallest and weakest creatures have 
been able to produce great effects : the swarms but of flies and 
lice could amate the great and mighty king of Egypt ; and all 
his forces could not free him and his peers from so impotent ad- 
versaries. But when a multitude is seconded with strength, how 



J How scant then is the account of tion until his passion ! — Bernard. 1. vi. 

tlie great and voluminous Abulensis, c. lo. As also that of Degrassalius, that 

who, upon Matt, xviii. lo, determines the French king hath two angel-guard  

that the Blessed Virgin had two angel- ians ; one, in regard of his private per- 

keepers ; one, the most noble of the son ; another, in respect to his royal 

angelical order, which guarded her all dignity! — Degrassal. 1. i. Jure 20. Ke- 

her life ; the other, Gabriel, an arch- gal. FranciEe. 

angel of the second order, who attended k Mr, Blunt's Voyage to the Levant, 
her from the time of Christ's concep- 



Of God and his Angels. 153 

must it needs be irresistible ! so it is in these blessed spirits : 
even their omnipotent Maker, who best knows what is derived 
from him, styles them by his apostle ^ower*. Eph. iii. lo; Col. 
ii. lo : and by his Psalmist, mighty ones in strength, Psalm ciii. 20. 
A small force seems great to the weak ; but that power which 
is commanded by the Almighty must needs be transcendently 
great. 

We best judge of powerfulness by the effects : how suddenly 
had one angel despatched every firstborn in Egypt; and, after 
them, the hundred fourscore and five thousand of the proud As- 
syrian army ! 2 Kings xix. 35 : and, if each man had been a le- 
gion, with what ease had it been done by that potent spirit! 
Neither are they less able to preserve than to destroy. That of 
Aquinas is a great word: "One angel is of such power, that he 
were able to govern all the corporeal creatures of the world." 
Justly was it exploded, as the wild heresy of Simon Magus and 
his clients the Menandrians, that the angels made the world. 
No ; this was the sole work of him that made them : but if we 
say that it pleases God by their ministration to sway and order 
the marvellous affairs of this great universe, we shall not, I sup- 
pose, vary from truth. If we look to the highest part thereof, 
philosophers have gone so far as to teach us, that which is se- 
conded by the allowance of some great divines, that these blessed 
intelligences are they, by whose agency, under their Almighty 
Creator, the heavens and the glorious luminaries thereof continue 
their ever-constant and regular motions. And if there fall out 
any preternatural immutations in the elements, any strange con- 
cussations of the earth, any direful prodigies in the sky, whither 
should they be imputed, but to these mighty angels; whom it 
pleaseth the most high God to employ in these extraordinary 
services ? That dreadful magnificence which was in the deliver- 
ing of the Law on mount Sinai, in fire, smoke, thunderings, 
lightnings, voices, earthquakes ; whence was it, but by the opera- 
tion of angels ? and indeed, as they are the nearest, both in na- 
ture and place, to the majesty of the Highest; so it is most 
proper for them to participate most of his power, and to exercise 
it in obedience to his sovereignty. As therefore he is that infi- 
nite Spirit who doth all things, and can do no more than all ; so 
they, as his immediate subordinates, are the means whereby he 
executeth his illiaiited power in and upon this whole created 
world, Joel iii. 11. Whence it is, that in their glorious appear- 



154 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

ances, they have been taken for Jehovah himself ; by Hagar ; 
by Manoah and his wife ; yea, by the better eyes of the father of 
the faithful, Gen. xvi. 13 ; Judges xiii. 22 ; Gen. xxii. 14. 

Now, Lord, what a protection hast thou provided for thy poor 
worms, and not men, creeping here on thine earth I and what 
can we fear, in so mighty and sure hands ? He that passeth 
with a strong convoy through a wild and perilous desert scorns 
the danger of wild beasts or robbers, no less than if he were in a 
strong tower at home : so do we the onsets of the powers of dark- 
ness, while we are thus invincibly guarded. 

When God promised Moses that an angel should go before 
Israel, and yet withal threatened the subduction of his own pre- 
sence; I marvel not, if the holy man were no less troubled than 
if they had been left destitute and guardless ; and that he ceased 
not his importunity, till he had won the gracious engagement 
of the Almighty for his presence in that whole expedition. For 
what is the greatest angel in heaven without his Maker ? But 
let thy favour, God, order and accompany the deputation of the 
lowest of thine angels, what can all the troops of hell hurt us ? 
As soon may the walls of heaven be scaled, and thy throne dis- 
turbed, as he can be foiled that is defended with thy power. 
Were it possible to conceive that the Almighty should be but a 
looker on in the conflict of spirits, we know that the good angels 
have so much advantage of their strength, as they have of their 
station ; neither could those subdued spirits stand in the encoun- 
ter : but now, he that is strong in our weakness is strong in their 
strength for us. Blessed be God for them, as the Author of 
them, and their protection ; blessed be they under God, as the 
means used by him for our protection and blessings. 

Sect. V. — The Knowledge of Angels. 

If Samson could have had his full strength in his mill, when 
he wanted his eyes, it would have little availed him; such is 
power without knowledge ; but where both of these concur in one, 
how can they fail of effect ? Whether of these is more eminent in 
the blessed spirits it is not easy to determine. 

So perfectly knowing are they, as that the very heathen philo- 
sophers have styled them by the name of intelligences ; as if their 
very being were made up of understanding. Indeed, what is 
there in this whole compass of the large universe that is hid from 
their eyes ? Only the closet of man's heart is locked up from 



Of God and his Angels. 155 

them, as reserved solely to their Maker ; yet so, as that they can, 
by some insensible chinks of those secret notifications wliich fall 
from us, look into them also. All other things, whether secrets 
of nature or closest counsels or events, are as open to their sight 
as the most visible objects are to ours. 

They do not, as we mortals are wont, look through the dim and 
horny spectacle of senses ; or understand by the mediation of 
phantasms : but rather, as clear mirrors, they receive at once the 
full representations of all intelligible things ; having, besides that 
connatural light which is universally in them all, certain special 
illuminations from the Father of lights. 

Even we men think we know something; neither may our 
good God lose the thank of his bounty this way : but, alas ! he 
that is reputed to have known most of all the heathen', whom 
some"^ have styled the genius of nature, could confess, that the 
clearest understanding is to those things which are most manifest 
but as a bat's eyes to the sun. Do we see but a worm crawling 
under our feet, we know not what that is which in itself gives it 
a being : do we hear but a bee humming about our ears, the 
greatest naturaHst cannot know whether that noise come from 
within the body, or from the mouth, or from the wings of that 
flyJi: how can we then hope or pretend to know those things 
which are abstruse and remote ? But these heavenly spirits do 
not only know things as they are in themselves and in their in- 
ward and immediate causes, but do clearly see the first and uni- 
versal cause of all things, and that in bis glorious essence : how 
much more do they know our shallow dispositions, affections, in- 
clinations, which peer out of the windows of our hearts ; together 
with all perils and events that are incident unto us ! 

We walk, therefore, amidst not more able than watchful over- 
seers : and so are we looked through, in all our ways, as if heaven 
were all eyes. Under this blessed vigilancy, if the powers of hell 
can either surprise us with suddenness, or circumvent us with 
subtlety, let them not spare to use their advantage. 

But, ye tutelar spirits, ye well know our weakness and 
their strength, our silliness and their craft, their deadly ma- 
chinations and our miserable obnoxiousness ; neither is your love 
to mankind and fidehty to your JIaker any whit less than your 

1 Arist. Metaphys. 1. ii. [c.i.] 

^ Bonavent. Vulcan, prsef. in lib. De Mundo. 

"Lord Bacon, in his Natural Hist. [Cent. ii. p. 175.] 



156 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

knowledge ; so as your charge can no more miscarry under your 
hands and eyes than yourselves. As you do always enjoy the 
beatifical vision of your Maker, so your eye is never off from his 
little ones ; your blessedness is no more separable from our safety, 
than you from your blessedness. 

Sect. VI. — The Employments and Operations of Ancf els. 

Even while we see you not, ye blessed spirits, we know what 
ye do. He that made you hath told us your task. As there are 
many millions of you attending the all-glorious throne of your 
Creator, and singing perpetual hallelujahs to him in the highest 
heavens : so there are innumerable numbers of you employed in 
governing and ordering the creature, in guarding the elect, in ex- 
ecuting the commands which ye receive from the Almighty. 

What variety is here of your assistance ! One while, ye lead us 
in our way, as ye did Israel ; another while, ye instruct us, as ye 
did Daniel : one while, ye tight for us, as ye did for Joshua ; an- 
other while, ye purvey for us, as for Elijah : one while, ye fit us 
to our holy vocation, as ye did to Isaiah ; another while, ye dis- 
pose of the opportunities of our calling for good, as ye did of 
Philip''s to the eunuch : one while, ye foretell our danger, as to Lot, 
to Joseph and Mary : another while, ye comfort our affliction, as 
to Hagar : one while, ye oppose evil projects against us, as to 
Balaam ; another while, ye will be striven with for a blessing, as 
with Jacob : one while, ye resist our offensive courses, as to Moses, 
Exod. iv. ; another while, ye encourage us in our devotions, as ye 
did Paul and Silas and Cornelius : one while, ye deliver from dur- 
ance, as Peter ; another while, ye preserve us from danger and 
death, as the Three Children : one while, ye are ready to restrain 
our presumption, as the cherub before the gate of paradise ; an- 
other while, to excite our courage, as to Elias and Theodosius : 
one while, to refresh and cheer us in our sufferings, as to the 
apostles ; another while, to prevent our sufferings, as to Jacob 
in the pursuit of Laban and Esau, to the sages in pursuit of Herod : 
one while, ye cure our bodies, as at the pool of Bethesda ; another 
while, ye carry up our souls to glory, as ye did to Lazarus. It 
were endless to instance in all the gracious offices which ye 
perform. 

Certainly, there are many thousand events wherein common 
eyes see nothing but nature, which yet are effected by the mini- 
stration of angels. When Abraham sent his servant to procure a 



Of God and his Angels. 157 

wife for his son from amongst his own cognation, the messenger 
saw nothing but men like himself, but Abraham saw an angel 
forecontriving the work ; God, saith he, shall send his angel he- 
fore thee, that thou inayest take a wife thence. Gen. xxiv. 7. 
When the Israelites forcibly, by dint of sword, expelled the Ca- 
naanites and Amorites, and the other branded nations, nothing 
appeared but their own arms ; but the Lord of hosts could say, 
/ will send unine angel before thee, by whom I shall drive them 
thence. Balaam saw his ass disorderly starting in the path : he 
that formerly had seen visions, now sees nothing but a wall and a 
way ; but in the mean time his ass, who for the present had more 
of the prophet than his master, could see an angel and a sword. 
The Sodomites went groping in the street for Lot's door, and miss 
it ; they thought of nothing but some sudden dizziness of brain, 
that disappointed them ; we know it was an angel that struck them 
with bhndness. Nothing appeared when the Egyptians' firstborn 
were struck dead in one night : the astrologers would perhaps say 
they were planetstruck ; we know it was done by the hand of an 
angel. Nothing was seen at the pool of Bethesda but a moved 
water, when the sudden cures were wrought ; which perhaps might 
be attributed to some beneficial constellation ; we know that an 
angel descended, and made the water thus sanative. Gehazi saw 
his master strangely preserved from the Aramite troops ; but had 
not his eyes been opened by the prophet^s prayers, he had not 
seen whence that aid came. 

Neither is it otherwise in the frequent experiments of our life. 
Have we been raised up from deadly sicknesses when all natural 
helps have given us up ? God's angels have been our secret phy- 
sicians. Have we had instinctive intimations of the death of some 
absent friends, which no human intellio-ence hath bidden us to 
suspect ? who, but our angels, hath wrought it ? Have we been 
preserved from mortal dangers, which we could not tell how by 
our providence to have evaded? our invisible guardians have 
done it. 

I see no reason to dislike that observation of Gerson : " Whence 
is it," saith he, " that little children are conserved from so many 
perils of their infancy ; fire, water, falls, suffocations, but by the 
agency of angels" V Surely, where we find a probability of second 

° " Qualiter pueri, inter tot infantia; discrimina, [nisi eis agentibus conservantur."] 
Gers. Serm. de Angel. [Pars. iv. 2. N.] 



158 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

causes in nature, we are apt to confine our thoughts from looking 
higher : yet even there, many times, are unseen hands. Had we 
seen the house fall upon the heads of Job^s children, we should 
perhaps have attributed it to the natural force of a vehement 
blast, when now we know it was the work of a spirit. Had we 
seen those thousands of Israel faUing dead of the plague, we should 
have complained of some strange infection in the air, when David 
saw the angel of God acting in that mortality. Human reason is 
apt to be injuriously saucy in ascribing those things to an ordinary 
course of natural causes, which the God of nature doth by super- 
natural agents. 

A master of philosophy, travelling wdth others on the way, 
when a fearful thunderstorm arose, checked the fear of his fel- 
lows, and discoursed to them of the natural reasons of that uproar 
in the clouds, and those sudden flashes wherewith they seemed, 
out of the ignorance, of causes, to be too much affrighted : in the 
midst of his philosophical discourse, he was stricken dead with 
that dreadful eruption which he slighted : what could this be but 
the finger of that God^ who will have his works rather entertained 
with wonder and trembling, than with curious scanning. 

Neither is it otherwise in those violent hurricanes, devouring 
earthquakes, and more than ordinary tempests, and fiery appa- 
ritions, which we have seen and heard of: for, however there be 
natural causes given of the usual events of this kind ; yet nothing 
hinders, but that the Almighty, for the manifestation of his power 
and justice, may set spirits, whether good or evil, on work to do 
the same things sometimes with more state and magnificence of 
horror. Like as we see frogs bred ordinarily both out of putre- 
faction and generation ; and yet, when it was for a plague to 
Egypt they were supernaturally produced : hail, an ordinary 
meteor ; murrain of cattle, an ordinary disease ; yet, for a plague 
to obdured Pharaoh, miraculously wrought. 

Neither need there be any great difficulty in discerning when 
such hke events run in a natural course and when spirits are 
actors in them ; the manner of their operation, the occasions and 
effects of them, shall soon descry them to a judicious eye : for 
when we shall find that they do manifestly deviate from the road 
of nature, and work above the power of secondary causes, it is 
easy to determine them to be of a higher efficiency. I could in- 
stance irrefragably, in several tempests and thunderstorms, which, 
to the unspeakable terror of the inhabitants, were in time seen. 



Of God and his Angels. 159 

heard, felt, in the western parts P ; wherein, the translocation and 
transportation of huge massy stones and irons of the churches, 
above the possibility of natural distance, together with the strange 
preservation of the persons assembled, with other accidents sensi- 
bly accompanying those astonishing works of God, still fresh in 
the minds of many, showed them plainly to be wrought by a 
strono'er hand than nature's^. 

And whither else should we ascribe many events which igno- 
rance teacheth us to wonder at in silence? If murderers be de- 
scried by the fresh bleeding of cold and almost putrefied carcasses : 
if a man by some strong instinct be warned to change that lodging 
which he constantly held for some years, and finds his wonted 
sleepingplace that night crushed with the unexpected fall of an 
unsuspected contignation : if a man, distressed with care for the 
missing of an important evidence, (such a one have I known ■■,) 
shall be informed in his dream in what hole of his dovecot he 
shall find it hid : if a man, without all observation of physical cri- 
ticisms, shall receive and give intelligence, many days before, what 
hour shall be his last : to what cause can we attribute these, but 
to our attending angels ? If a man shall in his dream, as Marcus 
Aurelius Antoninus^ professes, receive the prescript of the remedy 
of his disease, which the physicians, it seems, could not cure ; whence 
can this be, but by the suggestion of spirits ? 

And surely, since I am convinced that their unfelt hands are 
in many occurrences of my life, I have learned so much wit and 
grace, as rather to yield them too much than too little stroke in 
ordering all my concernments. ye blessed spirits, many things 
I know ye do for me, which I discern not while yet you do them, 
but after they are done ; and many things ye may do more which 
I know not. I bless my God and yours, as the Author of all ye 
do : I bless you, as the means of all that is done by you for me. 

Pin the churches of Foye, Totness, twenty- seven foot long, and struck them 

and Withycomb. Of the same kind into the earth, the streets being then 

were those prodigious tempests at Milan, unpaved, so deep, that only four foot 

an. 1521. and at Mechlin, Aug. 7, an. remained above ground. — Chron. of Sir 

15^7- Robert Baker, of the reign of Will. II. 

1 Histoires Prodigieuses de P. Boais- ' Mr. William Cook, senior, of Wal- 

tuan, c. 8. Of the same kind was that tham Holy Cross. 

fearful tempest, which, in the fourth year s Marc. Aurel. Antoninus his Me- 

of king William Rufus, blew down six ditat. concerning himself, 1. i. cap. 17. 

hundred houses in London ; and, reaving The like he reports of Chryses, ibid. 
Bow Church, carried away six beams of 



160 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

Sect. VII. — The Degrees and Orders of Angels. 

Heaven hath nothing in it but perfection ; but even perfection 
itself hath degrees. As the glorified souls, so the blessed angels, 
have their heights of excellency and glory. He who will be known 
for the God of order^ observeth, no doubt, a most exact order in 
his court of heaven, nearest to the residence of his Majesty. 
Equality hath no place, either in earth or in hell : we have no 
reason to seek it in heaven. He that was rapt into the third hea- 
ven can tell us of thrones, dominions, principalities, angels, and 
archangels, in that region of blessedness. 

We cannot be so simple as to think these to be but one class of 
spirits ; doubtless, they are distinctions of divers orders : but what 
their several ranks, offices, employments are, he were not more 
wise that could tell, than he is bold that dare speak. 

What modest indignation can forbear stamping at the pre- 
sumption of those men, who, as if upon Domingo Gonsales''s 
engine, they had been mounted by his Gansaes from the moon 
to the empyreal heaven, and admitted to be the heralds or mas- 
ters of ceremonies in that higher world, have taken upon them to 
marshal these angelical spirits into their several rooms ; propor- 
tioning their stations, dignities, services, according to the model 
of earthly courts ; disposing them into ternions of three general 
hierarchies, the first relating to the immediate attendance of the 
Almighty, the other two to the government of the creature, both 
general and particular ? 

In the first, of assistants, placing the seraphim as lords of the 
chamber ; cherubim, as lords of the cabinet-council ; thrones, the 
entire favourites, in whom the Almighty placeth his rest*. 

In the second, of universal regency, finding dominions to be the 
great officers of state, who, as counsellors, marshals, treasurers, 
govern the affairs of the world; mights, to be generals of the 
heavenly militia ; powers, as the judges itinerant, that serve for 
general retributions of good and evil. 

In the third, of special government, placing principalities as ru- 
lers of several kingdoms and provinces ; archangels, as guardians 
to several cities and countries ; and lastly, angels, as guardians of 
several persons. 

And withal, presuming to define the differences of degrees in 

* " Ut Commensales Deo :" Forner. Serm. IV. de Cust. Ang. or, as Cassaneus, 
"Cubicularii et servitutes throni :" Glor. Mund. 4. part. 



Of God and his Angels. 161 

each order above other, in respect of the goodness and excellency 
of their nature" : making the archangels no less than ten times 
to surpass the beauty of angels ; principalities, twenty times above 
the archangels ; powers, forty times more than principalities ; 
mights, fifty more than powers ; dominions, sixty above mights ; 
thrones, seventy above dominions; cherubim, eighty above thrones ; 
seraphim, ninety times exceeding the cherubim. 

For me, I must crave leave to wonder at this boldness, and 
profess myself as far to seek whence this learning should come 
as how to believe it. I do verily believe there are divers orders 
of celestial spirits ; I believe they are not to be believed that dare 
to determine them ; especially when I see him that was rapt into 
the third heaven varying the order of their places in the several 
mentions of them''. 

Neither can I trust to the revelation of that sainted prophetess^, 
who hath ranged the deo-rees of the beatitude of glorified souls 
into tlie several choirs of these heavenly hierarchies, according to 
their dispositions and demeanours here on earth ; admitting those 
who have been charitably helpful to the poor, sick, strangers, into 
the orb of angels ; those who have given themselves to meditation 
and prayer, to the rank of archangels ; those who have vanquished 
all offensive lusts in themselves, to the order of principalities ; 
to the height of powers, those whose care and vigilance hath 
restrained from evil and induced to good such as have been com- 
mitted to their oversight and governance ; to the place of mights, 
those who, for the honour of God, have undauntedly and valiantly 
suffered, and whose patience hath triumphed over evils ; to the 
company of dominions, those who prefer poverty to riches, and 
devoutly conform their wills in all things to their Maker's ; to 
the society of thrones, those who do so inure themselves to the 
continual contemplation of heavenly things, as that they have 
disposed their hearts to be a fit restingplace for the Almighty; 
to the honour of cherubim, those who convey the benefit of their 
heavenly meditations unto the souls of others ; lastly, to the high- 
est eminence of seraphim, those who love God with their whole 
heart, and their neighbour for God, and their enemies in God, and 
feel no wrongs but those which are done to their Maker. 

I know not whether this soaring conceit be more seemingly 

" Fomer. de Custod. Ang. Serm. V. 
» Compare Eph. i. 21. with Col. i. 16. 
y S. Matild. 1. Revel, c. 54. citat. etiam a Fomer. 

EP. HALL, VOL. VIIL M 



162 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

pious than really presuraptuouSj since it is evident enough that 
these graces do incur into each other, and are not possible to be 
severed. He that loves God cannot choose but be earnestly de- 
sirous to communicate his graces unto others, cannot but have 
his heart taken up with divine contemplation : the same man 
cannot but overlook earthly things, and courageously suffer for 
the honour of his God : shortly, he cannot but be vigilant over 
his own ways, and helpful unto others. Why should I presume 
to divide those \artues or rewards which God will have inseparably 
conjoined ? And what a strange confusion were this, instead of an 
heavenly order of remuneration ! Sure I am, that the least degree, 
both of saints and angels, is blessedness : but, for those stairs of 
glory, it were too ambitious in me to desire either to chmb or 
know them. It is enough for me to rest in the hope that I shall 
once see them : in the mean while let me be learnedlv ignorant 
and incuriously devout ; silently blessing the power and wisdom 
of my Infinite Creator, who knows how to honour himself by all 
these glorious and unrevealed subordinations. 

Sect, VIII. — The Apjjaritions of Angels. 

Were these celestial spirits, though never so many, never so 
powerful, never so knowing, never so excellently glorious, mere 
strangers to us, what were their number, power, knowledge, glory 
unto us I I hear of the great riches, state, and magnificence of 
some remote eastern monarchs ; what am I the better, w^hile, in 
this distance, their port and affairs are not capable of any relation 
to me ? To me it is all one, not to be, and not to be concerned. 
Let us therefore diligently inquire what mutual communion there 
is or may be betwixt these blessed spirits and us. 

And first, nothing is more plain than that the angels of God 
have not always been kept from mortal eyes under an invisible 
concealment ; but sometimes have condescended so low as to 
manifest their presence to men in visible forms, not natural, but 
assumed. 

I confess I have not faith enough to believe many of those ap- 
paritions that are pretended. I could never yet know what other 
to think of Socrates's ^ genius : which, as himself reports, was 
wont to check him when he went about any unmeet enterprise, 
and to forward him in good. For the modern times, it is too 

* " Ad nutum et arbitrium sibi assistentis [assidentis sibi] daemonis, declinabat 
negotia, vel petebat." — Minut. Felicis Octav. 



Of God and his Angels. 16f3 

hard to credit the report of Douay Letters^ concerning our busy- 
neighbour Pere Cotton, that he had ordinary conference and 
conversation with angels, both his own tutelar and those general 
of provinces : if so, what need was there for him to have pro- 
pounded fifty questions, partly of divinity, partly of policy, to the 
resolution of a demoniac ? Who can be so fondly credulous as to 
believe that Jo. Carera'', a young father of the society, had a 
daily companion of his angel, in so familiar a fashion, as to pro- 
pound his doubts to that secret friend ; to receive his answers ; 
to take his advice upon all occasions ; to be raised by him every 
morning from his bed to his early devotions, till once delaying 
caused for a time an intermission? Or, that the aged capuchin 
Franciscus de Bergamo, noted for the eleven precious stones 
which were found in his gall, had, for eight years together before 
his death, the assistance of an angel in the human shape for the 
performing of his canonical hours ? Or, that the angels helped 
their St. Gudwal, and St. Oswald bishop of Worcester, to say his 
mass? Or, that Isidore, the late Spanish peasant, newl}'- sainted 
amongst good company by Gregory the Fifteenth, serving an hard 
master, had an angel to make up his daily task at his plough, 
while the good soul was at his public devotions ; like as another 
angel supplied FeHx, the lay capuchin, in tending his cattle*' ? 
Or, that Francisca Romana, lately canonized, had two celestial 
spirits visibly attending her; the one, of the order of archangels, 
which never left her ; the other, of the fourth order of angels, 
who frequently presented himself to her view ; their attire some- 
times white, sometimes blue, purple more rarely; their tresses of 
hair long and golden, as the overcredulous bishop of Wurtzburg 
reports from Gulielmus Baldesanus, not without many improbable 
circumstances. 

These, and a thousand more of the same brain, find no more 
belief with me than that story which Franciscus Albertinus re- 
lates out of Baronius, as done here at home ; that in the year 
1 60 1, in England, there was an angel seen upon one of our 
altars, (and therefore more likely to be known in our own island 
than beyond the Alps,) in a visible form, with a naked sword in 
his hand, which he glitteringly brandished up and down, foining 
sometimes, and sometimes striking ; thereby threatening, so long 

a Duac. 18. Feb. 1627. ex Uteris Pet. '^ Ignat. Loyol. Xavier. Theresia. Isi- 
Rav. dor. Philippus Nerius. 4 Id. Martii. anno 

b Fom. Serm. V. 1602. 

M 2 



164 Tlte Invisible World. [Book I. 

ago, an instant destruction to this kingdom. And indeed why- 
should we yield more credit to these pretenders of apparitions than 
to Adelbertus the German heresiarch, condemned in a council of 
Rome by Pope Zachary^ who gave no less confidently out, that his 
angel-guardian appeared daily to him, and imparted to him many- 
divine revelations and directions? or if there be a difference pleaded 
in the relations, where or how shall we find it ? 

This we know, that so sure as we see men, so sure we are that 
holy men have seen angels. Abraham saw angels in his tent-door; 
Lot saw angels in the gate of Sodom ; Hagar, in the wilderness 
of Beersheba; Jacob, in the way ; Moses, in the bush of Horeb ; 
Manoah and his wife, in the field; Gideon, in his threshing-floor; 
David, by the threshingfloor of Araunah. What should I mention 
the prophets EHjah, Elisha, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Ezekiel, and 
the rest ? In the New Testament, Joseph, Mary, Zachariah the 
father of John Baptist, the shepherds, Mary Magdalen, the gazing 
disciples at the Mount of Olives, Peter, Philip, Cornelius, Paul, 
John the evangelist, were all blessed with the sight of angels. 

In the succeeding times of the church primitive, I dare believe 
that good angels were no whit more sparing of their presence, 
for the comfort of holy martyrs and confessors, under the pressure 
of tyranny for the dear name of their Saviour. I doubt not, but 
constant Theodorus saw and felt the refreshing hand of the angel 
no less than he reported to Juhan his persecutor d. I doubt not 
but the holy virgins, Theophila, Agnes, Lucia, Cecilia, and others, 
saw the good angels protectors of their chastity. As one that 
hath learned in these cases to take the midway betwixt distrust 
and creduhty, I can easily yield that those retired saints of the 
prime ages of the Church had sometimes such heavenly compa- 
nions for the consolation of their forced solitude ; but withal, I 
must have leave to hold, that the elder the Church grew, the 
more rare was the use of these apparitions, as of other miraculous 
actions and events : not that the arm of our God is shortened, or 
his care and love to his beloved ones any whit abated ; but for 
that his Church is now in this long process of time settled, through 
his gracious providence, in an ordinary way. Like as it was with 
the Israelites, who, while they were in their longsome passage, 
were miraculously preserved and protected ; but when they came 
once to be fixed in the land of promise, their angelical sustenance 

d Theodoret. 1. iii. c. ii. 



Of Ood and his Angels. 165 

ceased : they then must purvey for their own food, and either 
till or famish. 

Now then, in these latter ages of the Church, to have the visible 
apparition of a good angel, it is a thing so geason and uncouth, 
that it is enough for all the world to wonder at. 

Some few instances our times have been known to yield. 
Amongst others, that is memorable which Phil. Melanchton, as 
an eyewitness, reports. Simon Grynseus, a learned and holy 
man, coming from Heidelburg to Spires, was desirous to hear a 
certain preacher in that city, who in his sermon, it seems, did 
then let fall some erroneous propositions of popish doctrine, much 
derogatory from the majesty and truth of the Son of God : where- 
with Grynseus, being not a little oifended, craved speedy confer- 
ence with the preacher; and, laying before him the falsehood 
and danger of his doctrines, exhorted him to an abandoning and 
retraction of those misopinions. The preacher gave good words 
and a fair semblance to Grynseus, desirous of further and more 
particular conference with him, each imparting to other their 
names and lodgings; yet inwardly, as being stung with that just 
reproof, he resolved a revenge, by procuring the imprisonment, 
and, if he might, the death of so sharp a censurer. Grynseus, 
misdoubting nothing, upon his return to his lodging, reports the 
passages of the late conference to those who sat at the table with 
him; amongst whom, Melanchton, being one, was called out of 
the room to speak with a stranger newly come into the house : 
going forth accordingly, he finds a grave old man of a goodly 
countenance, seemly and richly attired ; who in a friendly and 
grave manner tells him, that within one hour there would come 
to their inn certain officers, as from the king of the Romans, to 
attach Grynseus and to carry him to prison ; willing him to charge 
Grynseus with all possible speed to flee out of Spires, and re- 
quiring Melanchton to see that this advantage were not neglected ; 
which said, the old man vanished out of his sight. Instantly 
Melanchton, returning to his companions, recounted unto them 
the words of this strange monitor, and hastened the departure of 
Grynseus accordingly ; who had no sooner boated himself on the 
Rhine, than he was eagerly searched for at his said lodging. 
That worthy divine, in his Commentary upon Daniel, both relates 
the story and acknowledges God's fatherly providence in sending 
this angel of his for the rescue of his faithful servant. Other, 
though not many of this kind, are reported by Simon Goulartius, 



166 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

in his collection of admirable and memorable histories of our time ; 
whither for brevity's sake I refer my reader e. 

But more often hath it fallen out, that evil spirits have visibly 
presented themselves in the glorious forms of good angels ; as to 
Simeon Stylites, to Pachomius, to Valens the monk, to Ratbodus 
duke of Friezland, to ]\Iacarius, to Gertrude in Westphalia, with 
many others, as we find in the reports of Ruffinus, Vincentius, 
Cajsarius, Palladius ; and the like delusions mav still be set on 
foot, while Satan, who loves to transform himself into an angel of 
light, laboureth by these means to nursle silly souls in supersti- 
tion ; too many whereof have swallowed the bait, though others 
have descried the hook. Amongst the rest, I like well the hu- 
mility of that hermit, into whose cell when the devil presented 
himself in a goodly and glittering form, and told him that he was 
an angel sent to him from God, the hermit turned him oif with 
this plain answer, " See thou whence thou comest : for me, 1 am 
not worthy to be visited with such a guest as an angeK." 

But the trade that we have with good spirits is not now driven 
by the eye, but is like to themselves, spiritual ; yet not so, but 
that even in bodily occasions we have many times insensible helps 
from them in such manner, as that by the effects we can boldly 
say, Here hath been an angel, though we saw him not. 

Of this kind was that no less than miraculous cure, which, at 
St. Maderne'sS in Cornwall, was wrought upon a poor cripple^; 
whereof, besides the attestation of many hundreds of the neigh- 
bour-s, I took a strict and personal examination in that last visita- 
tioni which I either did or ever shall hold. This man, that for 
sixteen years together was fain to walk upon his hands by reason 
of the close contraction of the sinews of his legs, was, upon three 
monitions in his dream to wash in that well, suddenly so restored 
to his limbs, that I saw him able both to walk and to get his own 
maintenance, I found here was neither art nor collusion ; the 
thing done, the author invisible. The like may we say of John 
Spangenberg, pastor of Northeuse^ : no sooner was that man 
stept out of his liouse with his family to go to the bains, than 
the house fell right down in the place. Our own experience at 
home is able to furnish us with divers such instances. How many 

« Goulart. Hist, inemor. ex Melanct. S S. Maternus. 

in i)au. c. 20. h One John Trelillu. 

f Bromiard. Sum. prjedicant. v. Hw- J At Whitsuntide. 

militas. [H. VI. 22.] . k Sim. Goular. ex J. Manlio. 



Of God and his Angels. 167 

have we known that have fallen from very high towers and into 
deep pits, past the natural possibility of hope, who yet have been 
preserved, not from death only, but from hurt ! Whence could 
these things be, but by the secret aid of those invisible helpers ? 
It were easy to fill volumes with particulars of these kinds. But 
V the main care and most officious endeavours of these blessed 
spirits are employed about the better part, the soul : in the in- 
stilling of good motions, enhghtening the understanding, repel- 
ling of temptations, furthering our opportunities of good, prevent- 
ing occasions of sin, comforting our sorrows, quickening our dul- 
ness, encouraging our weakness, and, lastly, after all careful at- 
tendance here below, conveving the souls of their chai^ge to their 
glory, and presenting them to the hands of their faithful Creator. 
It is somewhat too hard to believe that there have been ocular 
witnesses of these happy convoys. Who lists, may credit that 
which Jerome tells us, that Anthony the hermit saw the soul of 
his partner in that solitude (Paul) carried up by them to heaven ; 
that Severinus, bishop of Cologne, saw the soul of St. Martin thus 
transported, as Gregory reports in his Dialogues ; that Benedict 
saw the soul of Germanus, in the form of a fiery globe, thus con- 
veyed. What should I speak of the souls of the holy martyrs, 
Tiburtius, Valerian, Maximus, MarcelHnus^ Justus, Quintinus, 
Severus, and others ? we may if we please, we need not unless 
we list, give way to these reports, to which our faith obliges us 
not : in these cases we go not by eyesight : but we are well 
assured the soul of Lazarus was by these glorious spirits carried 
up into the bosom of Abraham ; neither was this any privilege of 
his above all other the saints of God; all which, as they land in 
one common harbour of blessedness, so they all participate of one 
happy means of portage. 

Sect. IX. — The Respects ivhich we owe to the Angels. 

Such are the respects of good angels to us : now what are ours 
to them '{ 

It was not amiss said of one, that the life of angels is poUtical ; 
full of intercourse v.ith themselves and with us. What they re- 
turn to each other in the course of their theophanies is not for 
us to determine ; but, since their good offices are thus assiduous 
unto us, it is meet we do inquire what duties are requirable from 
us to them. 

Devout Bernard is but too liberal in his decision, that we owe 



168 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

to these beneficent spirits reverence for their presence, devotion 
for their love, and trust for their custody'. Doubtless, we ought 
to be willing to give unto them so much as they will be willing 
to take from us : if we go beyond these bounds, we offend 
and alienate them : to derogate from them is not so heinous in 
their account as to over-honour them. St. John proffers an 
humble geniculation to the angel, and is put off with a — See thou 
do it not: I am thy felloivservant, liev. xix. lo. The excesses 
of respects to them have turned to abominable impiety ; which 
howsoever Jerome seems to impute to the Jews ever since the 
prophets' time™, yet Simon Magus was the first that we find 
guilty of this impious flattery of the angels, who, fondly holding 
that the world was made by them, could not think fit to present 
them with less than divine honour. His cursed scholar, Menan- 
der, whose error Prateolus wrongfully fathers upon Aristotle, 
succeeding him in that wicked heresy, as Eusebius tells us, left 
behind him Saturnius, not inferior to him in this frenzy ; who, as 
Tertuilian and Philastrius report him, fancied, together with his 
mad fellows, that seven angels made the world, not acquainting 
God with their work. What should I name blasphemous Cerin- 
thus, who durst disparage Christ in comparison with angels? 
Not altogether so bad were those heretics", though bad enough, 
which took their ancient denomination from the angels : who 
professing true Christianity and detestation of idolatry, as having 
learned that God only is to be worshipped properly, yet reserved 
a certain kind of adoration to the blessed angels°. Against this 
opinion and practice the great doctor of the Gentiles seems to 
bend his style, in his Epistle to the Colossians, forbidding a 
voluntary humility in worshipping of angels : whether grounded 
upon the superstition of ancient Jews, as Jerome and Anselm ; or 
upon the ethnic philosophy of some Platonic, as Estius and Corne- 
lius a Lapide imagine ; or upon the damnable conceits of the Si- 
monians and Corinthians, as Tertuilian ; we need not much to 
inquire : nothing is more clear than the apostle's inhibition, after- 
ward seconded by the synod of Laodicea. Whereto yet Theo- 
doret'sP noted Commentary would seem to give more light ; who 

1 Bern, in Psal. "Qui habitat." [Serm. res. 1. i. 38.] 
xii. § 6.] P "Rejecta expositio a pontificiia, ut 

m Hieron. quaest. 10. ad Algasiam. non modo periculosa sed et falsa, [prae- 

[Ed. Bened. Paris. 1 706. torn. iv. p. 205.] terquam quod periculosa sit vera non 

n Angelici. est.]" Vid. Binium in notis in Pium 

o Prateolus Elench. v. Angelici. [Hse- Pap. in torn. i. p. 123. 



Of God and his Angels. 169 

tells us, that upon the ill use made of the giving of the Law by 
the hands of angels, there was an error of old maintained, of 
angel worship, which still continued in Phrygia and Pisidia : so 
that a synod was hereupon assembled at Laodicea, the chief city 
of Phrygia, which, by a direct canon, forbad praying to angels ; 
a practice, saith he, so settled amongst them, that even to this 
day there are to be seen amongst them and their neighbours the 
oratories of St. Michael. Here then was this mishumility, that 
they thought it too much boldness to come immediately to God, 
but that we must first make way to his favour by the mediation 
of angels : a testimony so pregnant, that I wonder not if Caranza 
flee into corners, and all the fautors of angel-worship be driven 
to hard'i shifts to avoid it. 

But what do I with controversies ? This devotion we do gladly 
profess to owe to good angels, that though we do not pray 
unto them, yet we do pray to God for the favour of their as- 
sistance and protection, and praise God for the protection that 
we have from them. That faithful patriarch, of whom the whole 
Church of God receives denomination, knew well what he said 
when he gave this blessing to his grandchildren : The Angel that 
redeemed me from all evil, bless the children, Gen, xlviii. 19: 
whether this were an interpretative kind of imploration, as Beca- 
nus and Lorichius contend ; or whether, as is no less probable, 
this angel were not any created power, but the great Angel of 
the Covenant, the same which Jacob wrestled with before for a 
blessing upon himself, as x\thanasius and Cyril well conceive it, 
J will not here dispute : sure I am, that if it were an implicit 
prayer, and the angel mentioned, a creature ; yet the intention 
was no other than to terminate that prayer in God, who blesseth 
us by his angel. 

Yet further : we come short of our duty to these blessed spirits, 
if we entertain not in our hearts a high and venerable conceit of 
their wonderful majesty, glory, and greatness, and an awful 
acknowledgment and reverential awe of their presence ; an holy 
joy and confident assurance of their care and protection ; and, 
lastly, a fear to do aught that might cause them to turn away 
their faces in dislike from us. All these dispositions are copula- 
tive : for certainly, if we have conceived so high an opinion of 
their excellency and goodness as we ought, we cannot but be 

q Reading it angulos instead of angelos. 



170 The Invisible World. [Book I. 

bold upon their mutual interest, and be afraid to displease them. 
Nothing in the world but our sins can distaste them ; they look 
upon our natural infirmities, deformities, loathsomeness, without 
any offence or nauseation ; but our spiritual indispositions are 
odious to them, as those which are opposite to their pure natures. 
The story is famous of the angel and the hermit walking toge- 
ther : in the way, there lay an ill-scented and poisonous carrion : 
the hermit stopt his nose, and turned away his head^ hasting out 
of that offensive air; the angel held on his pace, without any 
show of dishke : straightway they met with a proud man, gaily 
dressed, strongly perfumed, looking high, walking stately ; the 
angel turned away his head and stopt his nostrils, (while the 
hermit passed on not without reverence to so great a person,) 
and gave this reason, that the stench of pride was more loath- 
some to God and his angels than that of the carcass could be to 
him. 

I blush to think, ye glorious spirits, how often I have done 
that whereof ye have been ashamed for me. I abhor myself to 
recount your just dislikes ; and do willingly profess how unworthy 
I shall be of such friends, if I be not hereafter jealous of your 
just offence. Neither can I, without much regret, think of those 
many and horrible nuisances which you find every moment from 
sinful mankind. Woe is me, what odious scents arise to you 
perpetually from those bloody murders, beastly uncleannesses, 
cruel oppressions, noisome disgorgings of surfeits and drunken- 
nesses, abominable idolatries, and all manner of detestable wick- 
ednesses, presumptuously committed every where; enough to 
make you abhor the presence and protection of debauched and 
deplored mortahty ! 

But for us, that are better principled, and know what it is to 
be overlooked by holy and glorious spirits, we desire and care to 
be more tender of your offence than of a world of visible specta- 
tors : and if the apostle found it requisite to give such charge, 
for but the observation of an outward decency, not much beyond 
the lists of indifferency, because of the angels, i Cor. xi. lo ; what 
should our care be, in relation to those blessed spirits, of our de- 
portment in matter of morality and religion ! Surely, O ye invi- 
sible guardians! it is not my sense that shall make the difference ; 
it shall be my desire to be no less careful of displeasing you, than 

' Jo. Bromiar. Sum. Praedic. v. Superbia. [S. xiv. § 2.] 



Book II.] Of tlte Souls of Men. 171 

if I saw you present by me, clothed in flesh ; neither shall I rest 
less assured of your gracious presence and tuition, and the ex- 
pectation of all spiritual offices from you, which may tend towards 
my blessedness, than I am now sensible of the animation of my 
own soul. 



THE SECOND BOOK.— OF THE SOULS OF MEN. 



Sect. I. — Of their Separation and Immortality. 

Next to these angelical essences, the souls of men, whether in 
the body or severed from it, are those spirits which people the 
invisible world ; next to them, I say ; not the same with them, 
not better. Those of the ancients, which have thought that the 
ruin of angels is to be supplied by blessed souls, spake doubtless 
without the book : for he that is the Truth itself hath said, they 
be 60-ayyeAot, like, not the same. And justly are those exploded, 
whether Pythagoreans, or Stoics, or Gnostics, or Manichees, or 
Almaricus, or, if Lactantius himself were in that error as Ludo- 
vicus Vives construes him, who falsely dreamed that the souls of 
men were of the substance of that God which inspired them : 
these errors are more fit for hellebore than for theological con- 
viction. Spiritual substances doubtless they are, and such as 
have no less distant original from the body than heaven is from 
earth. Galen was not a better physician than an ill divine, while 
he determines the soul to be the complexion and temperament of 
the prime qualities, no other than that harmony which the elder 
naturalists dreamed of; an opinion no less brutish than such a 
soul : for how can temperament be the cause of any 'progressive 
motion; much less of a rational discourse? Here is no mate- 
riality, no physical composition, in this inmate of ours ; nothing 
but a substantial act, an active spirit, a spiritual form of the King 
of all visible creatures. 

But as for the essence, original derivation, powers, faculties, 
operations of this human soul as it is lodged in this clay, I leave 
them to the disquisition of the great secretaries of nature : ray 
way lies higher, leading me from the common consideration of 
this spirit as it is clogged with flesh, unto the meditation of it as 
it is divested of this earthly case, and clothed with an eternity 
whether of joy or torment. 

We will begin with happiness, our fruition whereof, I hope, 



172 The Invisible World. [Book II. 

shall never end, if first we shall have spent some thoughts upon 
the general condition of this separation. 

That the soul, after separation from the body, hath an in- 
dependent life of its own, is so clear a truth, that the very heathen 
philosophers, by the dim light of nature, have determined it for 
irrefragable : insomuch as Aristotle himself, who is wont to hear 
ill for his opinion of the soul's mortality, is confidently reported 
to have written a book of the soul separate ; which Thomas 
Aquinas, in his so late age, professes to have seen. Sure 1 am, 
that his master Plato, and that heathen martyr Socrates, related 
by him, are full of divine discourses of this kind : insomuch as this 
latter, when Crito was asking him how he would be buried ; " I 
perceive,^' said he, " I have lost much labour ; for I have not yet 
persuaded my Crito that I shall fly clear away, and leave nothing 
behind me :" meaning, that the soul is the man ; and would be 
ever itself, when his body should have no being. And in Xeno- 
phon, as Cicero * cites him, Cyrus is brought in saying thus, 
Nolite arbitrari, ^"c. "Think not, my dear sons, that when I 
shall depart from you, I shall then cease to have any being : for 
even while I was with you, ye saw not that soul which I had ; 
but yet ye well saw, by those things which I did, that there was a 
soul within this body ; believe ye, therefore, that though ye shall 
see no soul of mine, yet that it still shall have a being."" Shortly, 
all but an hateful Epicurus have astipulated to this truth : and if 
some have fancied a transmigration of souls into other bodies ; 
others, a passage to the stars which formerly governed them ; 
others to 1 know not what Elysian fields ; all have pitched upon 
a separate condition. 

And indeed, not divinity only, but true natural reason will ne- 
cessarily evince it : for the intellective soul, being a more spiritual 
substance, and therefore having in it no composition at all, and, by 
consequence, nothing that may tend towards a not-being, can be 
no other, supposing the will and concurrence of the Infinite Crea- 
tor, than immortal. Besides, as our best way of judging aught is 
wont to be by the eftects ; certainly, all operations are from the 
forms of things, and all things do so work as they are. Now the 
body can do nothing at all without the help of the soul ; but the 
soul hath actions of its own^ : as, the acts of understanding, think- 

" Cicero de Senectute. [1. xxii.] cceleste et divinum est, ob eamque rem 

'' "Quicquid est illud quod sentit, seternum sit necesse est." TuH- Tmc. 
quod sapit, quod vult, quod viget, ^dct'si. 1. i. [c. xxvii.] 



Of the Souls of Men. 173 

ing, judging, remembering, ratiocination; whereof, if while it is 
within us, it receives the first occasions by our senses and phan- 
tasms, yet it doth perfect and accomplish the said operations by 
the inward powers of its own faculties : much more, and also more 
exactly, can it do all these things when it is merely itself; since the 
clog that the body brings with it cannot but pregravate and trou- 
ble the soul in all her performances. In the mean time, they do 
justly pass for mental actions ; neither do so much as receive a 
denomination from the body : we walk, move, speak, see, feel, and 
do other human acts ; the power that doth them is from the soul ; 
the means or instrument, whereby they are done, is the body ; no 
man will say the soul walks or sees, but the body by it; but we 
can no more say that the soul understands or thinks by the aid 
of the body, than we can say the body thinks or understands by 
means of the soul. These, therefore, being distinct and proper 
actions, do necessarily evince an independing and self-subsisting 
agent. my soul, thou couldest not be thyself, unless thou 
knewest thine original, heavenly ; thine essence, separable ; thy 
continuance, eviternal. 

But what do we call in reason and nature to this parle, where 
faith, by which Christianity teacheth us to be regulated, finds so 
full and pregnant demonstrations? No less than half our creed 
sounds this way, either by expression or inference ; wherein, 
while we profess to believe our Saviour rose from the dead and 
ascended, we imply that his body was not more dead than his 
soul living and active : that was it whereof he said. Father, into 
thy hands I commend my spirit. Now, we cannot imagine one 
life of the head, and another of the body : his state, therefore, is 
ours ; every way are we conform to him : as our bodies shall 
be then once like to his, glorious ; so our souls cannot be but as 
his, severed by death, crowned with immortahty. And if he shall 
come to judge both the quick and the dead ; those dead, whom 
he shall judge, must be hving : for, as our Saviour said in the 
hke case, God is not the Judge of the dead, as dead ; but the 
Judge of the living, that were dead, and therefore living in death 
and after death. And whereof doth the church catholic consist, 
but of some members warfaring on earth, others triumphant in 
heaven ? and what doth that triumph suppose, but both a being, 
and a being glorious ? What communion wei-e there of saints, if 
the departed souls were not, and the soul, when it begins to be 
perfect, should cease to be ? To what purpose were the resurrec- 



174 The Invisible World. [Book II. 

tion of the body, but to meet with his old partner, the soul ? and 
that meeting only, implies both a separation and existence. 
Lastly, what life can there be properly, but of the soul ? and how 
can that life be everlasting which is not continued ? or that con- 
tinued that is not ? If then he may be a man, certainly a Christ- 
ian he cannot be, who is more assured that he hath a soul in his 
body, than that his soul shall once have a being without his body. 
Death may tyrannize over our earthly parts, the worst he can 
do to the spiritual is to free it from a friendly bondage. 

Cheer up thyself, therefore, my soul, against all the fears 
of thy dissolution : thy departure is not more certain than thy 
advantage ; thy being shall not be less sure, but more free and 
absolute. Is it such a trouble to thee to be rid of a cloo- ? or art 
thou so loath to take leave of a miserable companion for a while, on 
condition that he shall ere long meet thee happy? 

Sect. II. — Of the Instant Vision of Ood upon the Egression of 
the Soul, and the Present Condition till then. 

But if in the mean while we shall let fall our eyes upon the 
present condition of the soul, it will appear how apt we are to 
misknow ourselves, and that which gives us the being of men. 

The most men, however they conceive they have a soul within 
them, by which they receive their animation, yet they entertain 
but dull and gloomy thoughts concerning it, as if it were no less 
void of light and activity than it is of materiahty and shape ; not 
apprehending the spiritual agility and clearly-lightsome natm'e of 
that whereby they are enlived. 

Wherein it will not a little avail us to have our judgments 
throughly rectified; and to know, that as God is light, so the 
soul of man, which comes immediately from him and bears his 
image, is justly, even here, dignified with that glorious title. 

I speak not only of the regenerate soul, illuminated by divine 
inspirations and supernatural knowledge ; but also even of that 
rational soul which every man bears in his bosom c : The spirit 
of man, saith wise Solomon, is the candle of the Lord, searching 

c "Lumen aUquod substantiale animas mus, quod respicit sine sole, quod videt 

habere baud improbe videmur advertere, sine extraneo lumine : nam si ipsum in 

quando in Evangelio legitur [lumen], se lucidum non esset, rerum tantam 

quod iUuminat omnem hominem venien- conspicientiam non haberet : tenebrosis 

tern in mundum : deinde, quod [quando] ista non data sunt ; omnia caeca tor- 

in cogitatione positi nescio quid tenue, pescunt." — Cassiodor. de Anima. c. 3. 

volubile, clarum in nobis inesse senti- [Ed. Bened. 1679. torn. ii. p. 631.] 



Of the Souls of Men. 1 75 

all the inward parts of the belly, Prov. xx. 27; and the dear 
apostle. In him was life; and the life was the light of men, 
John i.4; and more fully soon after, That was the true Light, 
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, ver. 9. No 
man can be so fondly charitable as to think every man that comes 
into the world enlightened by the Spirit of regeneration. It 
is then that intellectual hght of common nature'^, which the great 
Illuminator of the world beams forth into every soul in such pro- 
portion as he finds agreeable to the capacity of every subject. 

Know thyself, therefore, man, and know thy Maker, God 
hath not put into thee a dark soul, or shut up thy inward powers 
in a dungeon of comfortless obscurity ; but he hath set up a 
bright shining lamp in thy breast,whereby thou mayest sufficiently 
discern natural and moral truths, the principles and conclusions 
whether of nature or art ; herein advancing thee above all other 
visible creatures, whom he hath confined, at the best, to a mere 
opacity of outward and common sense. But if our natural light 
shall through the blessing of God be so happily improved as 
freely to give place to the spiritual, reason to faith; so that the 
soul can now attain to see him that is invisible, and in his light to 
see light. Psalm xxxvi. 9 ; now, even while it is overshaded with 
the interposition of this earth, it is already entered within the 
verge of glory ; but so soon as this veil of wretched mortality is 
done away, now it enjoys a clear heaven for ever, and sees as it 
is seen. 

Amongst many heavenly thoughts, wherewith my ever-dear 
and most honoured, and now blessed friend, the late Edward earl 
of Norwich, had wont to animate himself against the encounter 
with our last enemy death, this was one, not of the meanest, that 
in the very instant of his soul's departing out of his body it should 
immediately enjoy the vision of God. And certainly so it is. The 
spirits of just men need not stand upon distances of place or space 
of time for this beatifical sight ; but so soon as ever they are out 
of their clay-lodging they are in their spiritual heaven, even while 
the}' are happily conveyed to the local, 2 Cor. v. 1 ; for since no- 
thing hindered them from that happy sight but the interposition 
of this earth which we carry about us, the spirit, being once free 
from that impediment, sees as it is seen, being instantly passed 
into a condition like unto the angels. Well therefore are these 
coupled together by the blessed apostle, who, in his divine rapture, 

^ Calvin in loc. ^ 



176 The Invisible World. [Book II. 

had seen them both : Te are come, saith he, unto mount Sion, 
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, 
and to an innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of 
just men made jjerfect , Heb. xii.22. As, then, the angels of God, 
wheresoever they are, though employed about the affairs of this 
lower world, yet do still see and enjoy the A'ision of God, so do 
the souls of the righteous, when they are once eased of this earthly 
load. 

Doubtless, as they passed through degrees of grace while they 
took up with these homely lodgings of clay, so they may pass 
through degrees of bliss when they are once severed. And if, as 
some great divines^ have supposed, the angels themselves shall 
receive an augmentation of happiness at the day of the last judg- 
ment, when they shall be freed from all charge and employments; 
since their perfection of blessedness consists in rest, which is the 
end of all motion ; how much more shall the saints of God then 
receive an enlargement of their felicity! but, in the mean time, 
they are entered into the Usts of their essential beatitude, over 
the threshold of their heaven. 

How full and comfortable is that profession of the great apostle, 
who, when he had sweetly diverted the thoughts of himself and 
his Corinthians from their hght afflictions to an eternal weight 
of excelling glory; from things temporal, which are seen, to those 
everlasting, which are not seen ; adds, For we know that if our 
earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved^ we have a build- 
ing, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 2 Cor. v. i ; 
more than implying, that our eye is no sooner off from the tem- 
poral things than it is taken up with eternal objects; and that 
the instant of the dissolution of these clay cottages is the livery 
and seisin of a glorious and everlasting mansion in heaven. 

Canst thou believe this, my soul, and yet recoil at the thought 
of thy departure ? Wert thou appointed, after a dolorous disso- 
lution, to spend some hundreds of years at the foregates of glory, 
though in a painless expectation of a late happiness, even this 
hope were a pain alone ; but if sense of pain were also added to 
the delay, this were more than enough to make the condition 
justly dreadful : but now that one minute shuts our eyes and 
opens them to a clear sight of God, determines our misery and 
begins our blessedness, the cowardice of our unbelief, if we 
shrink at so momentary a purchase of eternity ! How many have 

e Bp. Andrewea in his answer to Bellarmine. 



Of the Souls of Men. 177 

we known, that, for a false reputation of honour, have rushed into 
the jaws of death, when we are sure they could not come back to 
enjoy it ; and do I tremble at a minute's pain, that shall feoff 
me in that glory which I cannot but for ever enjoy? How am 1 
ashamed to hear an heathen Socrates encouraging himself against 
the fears of death, from his resolution of meeting with some 
famous persons in that other world ; and to feel myself shrugging 
at a short brunt of pain, that shall put me into the bliss-making 
presence of the all-glorious God, into the sight of the glorified 
humanity of my dear Redeemer, into the society of all the angels 
and saints of heaven ! 

Sect. III. — Of the Soul's perpetual Vigilancy, and Fruition 

of God. 

It is no other than a frantic dream of those erroneous spirits 
that have fancied the sleep of the soul ; and that, so long and deep 
a sleep, as from the evening of the dissolution till the morning of 
the resurrection ; so as all that while the soul hath no vision of 
God, no touch of joy or pain. An error wickedfy raked up out 
of the ashes of those Arabic heretics whom Origen is said to have 
reclaimed ; and since that time taken up, if they be not slandered, 
by the Armenians and Fratricelli ; and once countenanced and 
abetted by Pope John the XXIInd, as Pope Adrian witnesseth ; 
yea, so enforced by him upon the university of Pai'is, as that all 
access to degrees was barred unto any whosoever refused to sub- 
scribe and swear to that damnable position. 

The Minorites began to find relish in that poison ; which, no 
doubt, had proceeded to further mischief, had not the interposition 
of Phihp, the then French king, happily quelled that uncomfortable 
and pernicious doctrine, so as we might have hoped it should never 
have dared more to look into the light. 

But, woe .is me, these prodigious times, amongst a world of 
other uncouth heresies, have not stuck to fetch even this also (well- 
worsted) back from the region of darkness, whither it was sent. 

Indeed, who can but wonder that a Christian can possibly give 
entertainment to so absurd a thought, while he hears his Saviour 
say, Father, I will that they also, ivhom thou hast given me, be 
with me where I am, ; and that, not in a safe sleep, they may 
behold my glory, which thou hast given me, John xvii. 24. Be- 
hold it? yea, but when? at last perhaps, when the body shall be 
resumed ? Nay, to choke this cavil, the bliss is present, even 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. N 



178 The Invisible World. [Book II. 

already possessed : The glory ivhich thou gavest me, I have given 
to them, ver. 22. It was accordingly his gracious -word to the 
penitent thief, This day shalt thou be ivith me in paradise. 

How clear is that of the Chosen Vessel, opposing our present 
condition to the succeeding ; For noiv we see through a glass 
darkly ; but then, that is, upon our dissolution, face to face, 
1 Cor. xiii. 12; the face of the soul to the face of God ! the infi- 
nite amiableness whereof was that which inflamed the longing 
desire of the blessed apostle to depart and to be with Christ, as 
knowing these two inseparable, the instant of his departure, and 
his presence with Christ ; else the departure were no less worthy 
of fear, as the utmost of evils, than now it is of wishing for, as 
our entrance into blessedness. 

Away then with that impious frenzy of the soul's whether 
mortality or sleep in death. No, my soul, thou dost then begin 
to live ; thou dost not awake till then. Now, while thou art in 
the bed of this living clay, thine eyes are shut ; thy spiritual 
senses are tied up; thou art apt to snore in a sinful security; 
thou dreamest of earthly vanities : then, only then, are thine eyes 
opened, thy spiritual faculties freed, all thy powers quickened, and 
thou art perpetually presented with objects of eternal glory. And 
if at any time, during this pilgrimage, thine eyelids have been 
some little raised by divine meditations, yet how narrowly, how 
dimly art thou wont to see ! now, thine eyes shall be so broadly 
and fully opened, that thou shalt see whole heaven at once ; yea, 
which is more, the face of that God wliose presence makes it 
heaven. 

O glorious sight ! most blessed condition ! Wise Solomon 
could truly observe, that the eye is not satisfied with seeing ; nei- 
ther indeed can it be here below. Nothing is so great a glutton 
as the eye ; for when we have seen all that we can, we shall still 
wish to see more ; and that more is nothing, if it be less than all. 
But this infinite object, which is more than all, shall so fill and 
satisfy our eyes, that we cannot desire the sight of any other 
nor ever be glutted with the sight of this. Old Simeon, when 
once he had lived to see the Lord of life clothed in flesh, could 
say, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for 
mine eyes have seen thy salvation. If he were so full of the sight 
of his Saviour in the weakness of human flesh, and in the form of 
a servant ; how is he more than sated with the perfection of joy 
and heavenly delectation, to see the Saviour clothed with majesty; 



Of the Soids of Men. 179 

to see his all-glorious Godhead; and so to see, as to enjoy them; 
and so enjoy them, as that he shall never intermit their sight and 
fruition to all eternity. 

Sect. IV. — Of the Knowledge of the Glorified. 

As concerning all other matters, what the knowledge is of our 
souls, separated and glorified, we shall then know when ours come 
to be such : in the mean time, we can much less know their 
thoughts than they can know ours. Sure Ave are, they do not 
know in such manner as they did when they were in our bosoms; 
by help of senses and phantasms, by the discursive inferences of 
ratiocination : but that they were elevated to a condition suitable 
to the blessed angels, so that they know like them : though not 
by the means of a natural knowledge, as they ; yet by that super- 
natural light of intimation which they receive by their glorified 
estate. 

Whether by virtue of this divine illumination they know the 
particular occurrences which we meet with here below, he were 
bold that would determine ; only this we may confidently affirm, 
that they do clearly know all those things which do any way ap- 
pertain to their state of blessedness. 

Amongst which, whether the knowledge of each other in that 
region of happiness may justly be ranked, is not unworthy of our 
disquisition. 

Doubtless, as in God there is all perfection eminently and 
transcendently ; so, in the sight and fruition of God, there can- 
not be but full and absolute felicity ; yet this is so far from ex- 
cluding the knowledge of those things which derive their good- 
ness and excellency from him, as that it compriseth and supposeth 
it. Like as it is also in our affections : we love God only as the 
chief good ; yet so, as that we love other things, in order to God. 
Charity is no more subject to loss than knowledge : both these 
shall accompany our souls to and in that other world. As then 
we shall perfectly love God, and his saints in him ; so shall we 
know both : and though it be a sufficient motive of our love in 
heaven, that we know them to be saints ; yet it seems to be no 
small addition to our happiness, to know that those saints were 
once ours. And if it be a just joy to a parent here on earth 
to see his child gracious, how much more accession shall it 
be to his joy above, to see the fruits of his loins glorious ; 

N 2 



180 The Invisible World. [Book II. 

when both his love is more pure, and their improvement 
absolute ! Can we make any doubt that the blessed angels 
know each other ? How senseless were it to grant that no know- 
ledge is hid from them but of themselves ! Or can we imagine 
that those angelical spirits do not take special notice of those 
souls which they have guarded here and conducted to their glory? 
If they do so, and if the knowledge of our beatified souls shall be 
like to theirs, why should we abridge our souls more than them 
of the comfort of our interknowing ? Surely, our dissolution shall 
abate nothing of our natural faculties ; our glory shall advance 
them, so as what we once knew we shall know better : and if our 
souls can then perfectly know themselves, why should they be 
denied the knowledge of others ? 

Doubt not then, my soul, but thou shalt once see, besides 
the face of thy God, whose glory fills heaven and earth, the blessed 
spirits of the ancient patriarchs and prophets ; the holy apostles 
and evangelists ; the glorious martyrs and confessors ; those 
eminent saints, whose holiness thou wert wont to magnify ; and, 
amongst them, those in whom nature and grace have especially 
interested thee : thou shalt see them^ and enjoy their joy, and 
they thine. How oft have I measured a long and foul journey 
to see some good friend ; and digested the tediousness of the way^ 
with the expectation of a kind entertainment, and the thought of 
that complacency which I should take in so dear a presence ! and 
yet, perhaps, when I have arrived, I have found the house disor- 
dered, one sick, another disquieted, myself indisposed : with what 
cheerful resolution should I undertake this my last voyage, where 
I shall meet with my best friends, and find them perfectly happy, 
and myself with them ! 

Sect. V. — Of the Glory of Heaven enjoyed by Blessed Souls. 

How often have I begged of my God, that it would please him 
to show me some little ghmpse of the glory of his saints ! It is not 
for me to wish the sight, as yet, of the face of that divine Majesty : 
this was too much for a Moses to sue for : my ambition only is, 
that I might, if but as it were through some cranny or keyhole 
of the gate of heaven, see the happy condition of his glorious 
servants. 

1 know what hinders me ; my miserable unworthiness, ray spi- 
ritual blindness. O God, if thou please to wash off my clay with 



Of the Souls of Men . 1 81 

the waters of thy Siloam, I shall have eyes ; and if thou anoint 
them with thy precious eyesalve, those eyes shall bo clear, and 
enabled to behold those glories which shall ravish my soul. 

And now, Lord, what pure and resplendent light is this, wherein 
thy blessed ones dwell! How justly did thine ecstatical apostle 
call it the inheritance of the saints in light! Col. i. 12 : light un- 
expressible, light unconceivable, light inaccessible ! Lo, thou that 
hast prepared such a light to this inferior world, for the use and 
comfort of us mortal creatures, as the glorious sun, which can both 
enlighten and dazzle the eyes of all beholders ; hast proportionally 
ordained a light to that higher world, so much more excellent 
than the sun, as heaven is above earth, immortahty above cor- 
ruption. And if wise Solomon could say. Truly the light is sweet, 
and a i^leasant tiling it is for tJie eyes to see the sun, Eccl. xi. 7 : 
how infinitely delectable is it, in thy light to see such light, as 
may make the sun, in comparison thereof, darkness ! In thy pre- 
sence is the fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures 
for evermore. AVhat can be wished more, where there is fulness 
of joy ? and behold, thy presence, O Lord, yields it. 

Could I neither see saint nor angel in that whole empyreal 
heaven, none but thine infinite Self, Thyself alone were happiness 
for me more than enough. But as thou, in whom here below 
we live and move and have our being, detractest nothing from 
thine all-sufficiency, but addest rather to the praise of thy bounty, 
in that thou furnishest us with variety of means of our life and 
subsistence ; so here it is the praise of thy wonderful mercies, 
which thou allowest us, besides thine immediate presence, the 
society of thy blessed angels and saints, wherein we may also 
enjoy thee. 

And if the view of any of those single glories be enough to 
fill my soul with wonder and contentment, how must it needs run 
over at the sight of those worlds of beauty and excellency which 
are here met and united ! Lo here, the blessed hierarchy of innu- 
merable angels ; there, the glorious company of the apostles ; 
here, the goodly fellowship of the patriarchs and prophets ; there, 
the noble army of martyrs ; here, the troops of laborious pastors 
and teachers ; there, the numberless multitudes of holy and con- 
scionable professors. Lord, what exquisite order is here, what 
perfection of glory ! 

And if, even in thine eyes, thy poor despised Church upon 
earth be so beautiful and amiable, /«ir as the moon, clear as the 



182 ' The Invisible World. [Book IL 

sun, Cant. vi. lo, which yet, in the eyes of flesh, seems but 
homely and hardfavoured ; how infinite graces and perfections 
shall our spiritual eyes see in thy glorified spouse above ! what 
pure sanctity ! what sincere charity ! what clear knowledge ! what 
absolute joy ! what entire union ! what wonderful majesty ! what 
complete felicity ! All shine alike in their essential glory, but not 
without difference of degrees. All are adorned with crowns, some 
also with coronets: some glister with a sky-like, others with a 
star-like clearness : the least hath so much as to make him so 
happy that he would not wish to have more ; the greatest hath so 
much, that he cannot receive more. 

O divine distribution of bounty, where is no possibility of either 
want or envy ! transcendent royalty of the saints ! One heaven is 
more than a thousand kingdoms, and every saint hath right to all : 
so as every subject is here a sovereign, and every sovereign is 
absolute, under the free homage of an infinite Creator. Lo here 
crowns, without cares ; sceptres, without burden ; rule, without 
trouble ; reigning, without change. O the transitory vanity of all 
earthly greatness ! Gold is the most during metal, yet even that 
yields to age ; Solomon's rich diadem of the pure gold of Ophir 
is long since dust ; these crowns of glory are immarcessible, incor- 
ruptible, beyond all the compass of time, without all possibility 
of alteration. O the. pressing and unsatisfying contentments of 
earth ! How many poor great ones below have that which they 
call honour and riches, and enjoy them not ; and if they have en- 
joyed them, complain of satiety and worthlessness ! Lo here, a 
free scope of perfect joy, of constant blessedness, without mixture, 
without intermission : each one feels his own joy, feels each other's ; 
all rejoice in God, with a joy unspeahahle and ftdl of glory, and 
most sweetly bathe themselves in a pure and complete blissful- 
ness. This very sight of blessed souls is happiness ; but 0, for 
the fruition ! 

Go now, my soul, and after this prospect dote upon those silly 
profits and pleasures which have formerly bewitched thee ; and, 
if thou canst, forbear to long after the possession of this blessed 
immortality, and repine at the message of this so advantageous a 
translation, and pity and lament the remove of those dear pieces 
of thyself which have gone before thee to this unspeakable 
felicity. 



Of the Souls of Men. 1 83 

Sect. VI. — Wlierein the Olory of the Saints above consisteth, 
and how they are employed. 

Such is the place, such is the condition, of the blessed. What 
is their employment? How do they spend, not their time, but 
their eternity? 

How but in the exercise of the perpetual acts of their blessed- 
ness — vision, adhesion, fruition ? 

Who knows not that there is a contract passed betwixt God 
and the regenerate soul here below ? Out of the engagement of 
his mercy and love, he endows her with the precious graces of 
faith, of hope, of charity : faith, whereby she knowingly appre- 
hends her interest in him ; hope, whereby she cheerfully expects 
the full accomplishment of his gracious promises ; charity, whereby 
she is feehngly and comfortably possessed of him, and clings close 
unto him. In the instant of our dissolution, we enter into the 
consummation of this blessed marriage. Wherein it pleaseth our 
bountiful God to endow his gloritied spouse with these three pri- 
vileges and improvements of her beatitude answerable to these 
three divine graces : vision answers to faith ; for what our faith 
sees and apprehends here on earth, and afar off, as travellers, our 
estate of glorification exhibits to us clearly and at hand, as com- 
prehensors; the object is the same, the degrees of manifestation 
differ : adhesion answers to our hope ; for what our hope com- 
fortably expected and longed for, we do now lay hold on as pre- 
sent, and are brought home to it indissolubly : fruition, lastly, an- 
swers to charity ; for what is fruition, but a taking pleasure in 
the thing possessed, as truly delectable, and as our own ? and 
what is this but the perfection of love ? Shortly, what is the end 
of our faith, but sight ? what the end of our hope, but possession ? 
what the end of our love, but enjoying ? 

Lo, then, the inseparable and perpetual sight, possession, enjoy- 
ment, of the infinitely amiable and glorious Deity is not more the 
employment than the felicity of saints. 

And what can the soul conceive matchable to this happiness ? 

The man after God's own heart had one boon to ask of his 
Maker : it must be, sure, some great suit wherein a favourite will 
set up his rest : One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I 
will require ; even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all 
the days of my life, to behold the fair beauty of the Lord., and 



184. The Invisible World. [Book 11. 

to visit his holy temple, Psalm xxvii, 4, Was it so contenting an 
happiness to thee, O David, to behold, for a moment of time, the 
fair beauty of the Lord in his earthen temple, where he meant 
not to reveal the height of his glory ? How blessed art thou now, 
when thy soul lives for ever in the continual prospect of the infi- 
nite beauty and majesty of God, in the most glorious and eternal 
sanctuary of heaven! It was but in a cloud and smoke wherein 
God showed himself in his material house ; above, thou seest him 
clothed in an heavenly and incomprehensible hght : and if a little 
glimpse of celestial glory, in a momentary transfiguration, so 
transported the prime apostle, that he wished to dwell still in 
Tabor ; how shall we be ravished with the full view of that all- 
glorious Deity, whose very sight gives blessedness ! What a life 
doth the presence of the sun put into all creatures here below ! 
yet the body of it is afar off; the power of it, created and finite. 
O then, how perfect and happy a life must we needs receive from 
the Maker of it, when the beams of his heavenly glory shall shine 
in our face ! Here below, our weak senses are marred with too 
excellent objects ; our pure spirits above cannot complain of ex- 
cess, but by how much more of that divine light they take in are 
so much the more blessed. There is no other thing wherein our 
sight can make us happy : we may see all other objects, and yet be 
miserable : here, our eyes convey into us influences of bliss. 

Yet not our eyes alone ; but, as the soul hath other spiritual 
senses also, they are wholly possessed of God ; our adhesion is, as it 
were, an heavenly touch, our fruition, as an heavenly taste of the 
ever blessed Deity ; so the glorified soul in seeing God feelingly 
apprehends him as its own ; in apprehending, sweetly enjoys him 
to all eternity, finding in him more absolute contentment than it 
can be capable of, and finding itself capable of so much as to 
make it everlastingly happy. Away with those brutish paradises 
of Jews and Turks, and some Judaizing Chiliasts, who have 
placed happiness in the full feed of their sensual appetite, inverting 
the words of the epicurean in the gospel : he could say, Let us eat 
and drink, for to morroiu we shall die ; they, " Let us die, for we 
shall eat and drink :" men, whose belly is their god, their kitchen, 
their heaven. The soul that hath had the least smack how sweet the 
Lord is, in the weak apprehension of grace here below, easily 
contemns these dunghill felicities, and cannot but long after 
those true and satisfying delights above, in comparison whereof 



Of the Souls of Men. 1 85 

all the pleasures of the paunch and palate are but either savour- 
less or noisome. 

Feast thou thyself onwards, my soul, with the joyful hope of 
this blessed vision, adhesion, fruition. Alas ! here thy dim eyes 
see thy God through clouds and vapours, and not without mani- 
fold diversions : here, thou cleavest imperfectly to that absolute 
goodness but with many frail interceptions ; every prevalent 
temptation looseth thy hold, and makes thy God and thee 
strangers : here, thou enjoy est him sometimes in his favours, 
seldom in himself; and when thou dost so, how easily art thou 
robbed of him by the interpositions of a crafty and bewitching 
world ! There, thou shalt so see him, as that thou shalt never 
look off; so adhere to him, as never to be severed; so enjoy 
him, that he shall ever be all in all to thee, even the soul of thy 
soul : thy happiness is then essential, thy joy as inseparable as thy 
beino:. 



'»• 



Sect. VII. — In what Terms the departed Saints stand to us, 
and what respects they hear to us. s 

Such is the felicity wherein the separate souls of God's elect 
ones are feoffed for ever. But, in the mean time, what terms do 
they stand in to their once-partners, these human bodies? to 
these, the forlorn companions of their pilgrimage and warfare? 
Do they despise these houses of clay wherein they once dwelt ? 
or have they, with Pharaoh^s courtier, forgotten their fellow- 
prisoner ? Far be it from us to entertain so injurious thoughts of 
those spirits whose charity is no less exalted than their know- 
ledge. 

Some graces they do necessarily leave behind them. There 
is no room for faith, where there is present vision ; no room for 
hope, where there is full fruition ; no room for patience, where 
is no possibility of suffering : but charity can never be out of 
date ; charity, both to God and man. 

As the head and body mystical are undivided, so is our love to 
both : we cannot love the head and not the body ; we cannot 
love some limbs of the body, and not others. The triumphant 
part of the Church then, which is above, doth not more truly 
love each other glorified, than they love the warfaring part 
beneath. 

Neither can their love be idle and fruitless : they cannot but 
wish well, therefore, to those they love. 



186 The Invisible World. [Book II. 

That the glorified saints then above, in a generality, wish for 
the good estate and happy consummation of their conflicting 
brethren here on earth, is a truth not more void of scruple than 
fall of comfort. 

It was not so much revenge which the souls under the altar 
pray for upon their murderers, (Rev. vi. lOj) as the accomphsh- 
ment of that happy resurrection in which that revenge shall be 
perfectly acted. The prayer in Zechariah (and saints are herein 
parallel) is, Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy 
on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against ivhich thou 
hast had indignation ? Zech. i. 12. 

We do not use to joy but in that which we wish for. There is 
joy in heaven in the presence of the angels for sinners repenting, 
Luke XV. 7, 10: in the presence of the angels, therefore, on the 
part of the saints : none but they dwell together. 

O ye blessed saints, we praise God for you, for your happy 
departure, for your crown of immortality. Ye do, in common, 
sue to God for us, as your poor fellow-members, for our happy 
eluctation out of those miseries and temptations wherewith we are 
continually conflicted here below, and for our society with you in 
your blessedness. Other terms of communion we know none. 
As for any local presence, or particular correspondence, that ye 
may have with any of us, as we cannot come to know it ; so, if 
we could, we should have no reason to disclaim it. 

Johannes a Jesu-Maria^, a modern Carmelite, writing the life 
of Theresia, sainted lately by Gregory the Fifteenth, tells us, 
that as she was a vigilant overseer of her votaries in her life ; 
so, in and after death, she would not be drawn away from her 
care and attendance ; " for," saith he, " if any of her sisters did 
but talk in the set hours of their silence, she was wont, by three 
knocks at the door of the cell, to put them in mind of their en- 
joined taciturnity :" and on a time appearing, as she did often, 
in a liofhtsome brightness, to a certain Carmelite, is said thus to 
bespeak him : Nos ccelestes, ^"c. " We citizens of heaven, and ye 
exiled pilgrims on earth, ought to be linked in a league of love 
and purity =, &c.^^ Methinks the reporter should fear this to be 
too much good fellowship for a saint. I am sure neither divine 
nor ancient story had wont to aiFord such familiarity : and many 

f Joh. a Jesu Mar. 1. v, de vit. The- araore ac puritate foederati esse.deber- 
res. c. 3. iniis, &c," 

% "Nos ccelestes, ac vos exules, 



Of the Souls of Men. 187 

have misdoubted the agency of worse, where have appeared less 
causes of suspicion. That this was, if any thing, an ill spirit, 
under that face, I am justly confident ; neither can any man 
doubt, that, looking farther into the relation, finds him to come 
with a lie in his mouth. For thus he goes on^ : " We celestial 
ones behold the Deity ; ye banished ones worship the eucharist ; 
which ye ought to worship with the same affection wherewith we 
adore the Deity." Such perfume doth this holy devil leave be- 
hind him. The like might be instanced in a thousand appari- 
tions of this kind, all worthy of the same entertainment. 

As for the state of the souls of Lazarus, of the widow's son, of 
Jairus"'s daughter, and of Tabitha, whether there were, by divine 
appointment, a suspension of their final condition for a time; 
tlieir souls awaiting: not far off from their bodies for a further 
disposition; or whether they were, for the manifestation of the 
miraculous power of the Son of God, called off from their settled 
rest, some great divines may dispute, none can determine. 
Where God is silent, let us be willingly ignorant. 

With more safety and assurance may we inquire into those 
respects wherein the separated soul stands to that body which 
it left behind it for a prey to the worms, a captive to death and 
corruption ; for certainly, though the parts be severed, the rela- 
tions cannot be so ; God made it intrinsically natural to that 
spiritual part to be the form of man, and therefore to animate 
the body. It was in the very infusion of it created ; and in the 
creating, infused into this coessential receptacle : wherein it holds 
itself so interested, as that it knows there can be no full consum- 
mation of its glory without the other half. It was not therefore 
more loath to leave this old partner in the dissolution, than it is 
now desirous to meet him again ; as well knowing in how much 
happier condition they shall meet than they formerly parted. 
Before, this drossy piece was cumbersome, and hindered the free 
operations of this active spirit ; now, that by a blessed glorifica- 
tion it is spiritualized, it is every way become phable to his re- 
newed partner the soul, and both of them to their infinitely 
glorious Creator. 

** " Nos coelites intuentes Divinita- tes ; quam eo affectu quo nos Divinita- 
tem, V03 exules eucharistiain veneran- tem suspicimus, colere debetis." — Ibid. 



188 The Invisible World. [Book II. 

Sect. VIII. — The Reunion of the Body to the Soid, both 

glorified. 

Lo then, so happy a reunion as this material world is not 
capable of, till the last fire have refined it, of a blessed soul, met 
with a glorified body, for the peopling of the new heaven. 

Who can but rejoice in spirit, to foresee such a glorious com- 
munion of perfected saints ? to see their bodies with a clear bright- 
ness, without all earthly opacity ; with agility, without all dul- 
ness ; with subtlety, without grossness ; with impassibihty, without 
the reach of annoyance or corruption ? 

There and then shalt thou, my soul, looking through clari- 
fied eyes see, and rejoice to see, that glorious body of thy dear 
God and Saviour, which he assumed here below, and wherein 
he wrought out the great work of thy redemption. There shalt 
thou see the radiant bodies of all those eminent saints, whose 
graces thou hadst wont to wonder at, and weakly wish to imitate. 
There shall I meet with the visible partners of the same unspeak- 
able glory ; my once dear partner, children, friends : and, if 
there can be room for any more joy in the soul that is taken up 
with God, shall both communicate and appropriate our mutual 
joys. There shall we, indissolubly, with all the choir of heaven 
pass our eviternity of bliss in lauding and praising the incompre- 
hensibly-glorious Majesty of our Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, 
in perpetual hallelujahs to him that sits upon the throne. 

And canst thou, my soul, in the expectation of this happi- 
ness, be unwilling to take leave of this flesh for a minute of sepa- 
ration ? How well art thou contented to give way to this body, 
to shut up the windows of thy senses, and to retire itself after the 
toil of the day, to a nightly rest, whence yet thou knowest it is 
not sure to rise ; or, if it do, yet it shall rise but such as it lay 
down, some little fresher, no whit better : and art thou so loath to 
bid a cheerful good-night to this piece of myself, which shall more 
surely rise than lie down, and not more surely rise than rise 
glorious ? Away with this weak and wretched infidelity, without 
which the hope of nty change would be my present happiness, 
and the issue of it mine eternal glory. Even so. Lord Jesus, 
come quickly. 



Of the Evil Angels. 189 



THE THIRD BOOK.— OF THE EVIL ANGELS. 



Sect. I. — Of their First Sin and Fall. 

Hitherto our thoughts have walked through the hghtsome 
and glorious regions of the spiritual world. Now it is no less 
requisite to cast some glances towards those dreadful and dark- 
some parts of it, where nothing dwells but horror and torment. 
Of the former, it concerns us to take notice for our comfort ; of 
these latter, for terror, caution, resistance. 

I read it reported by an ancient traveller, Haytonus, of the 
order of the Premonstratenses, and cousin, as he saith, to the 
then king of Armenia, that he saw a country in the kingdom of 
Georgia, which he would not have believed except his eyes had 
seen it, called Hamsem, of three days'* journey about, covered 
over with palpable darkness, wherein some desolate people dwell : 
for those which inhabit upon the borders of it might hear the 
neighing of horses, and crowing of cocks, and howling of dogs, 
and other noises ; but no man could go into them without loss of 
himself ''■. 

Surely this may seem some slight representatiou of the condi- 
tion of apostate angels and reprobate souls. Their region is the 
kingdom of darkness : they have only light enough to see them- 
selves eternally miserable ; neither are capable of the least glimpse 
of comfort or mitigation. But as it falls out with those which in 
a dark night bear their own light, that they are easily discerned 
by an enemy that waits for them, and good aim may be taken at 
them, even while that enemy lurks unseen of them ; so it is with 
us in these spiritual ambushes of the infernal powers : their dark- 
ness and our light gives them no small advantage against us. 
The same power that clears and strengthens the eyes of our soul 
to see those over-excelhng glories of the good angels, can also 
enable us to pierce through that hellish obscurity, and to descry 
so much of the natures and condition of those evil spirits, as may 
render us both wary and thankful. 

In their first creation there were no angels, but of light. That 

* Fr. Haytonus in Passagio Terrse Sanctse. an. 1300. edit, a Nicol. Salcone. 
[Haithoni Amieni Hist. Orient, c. x.] 



190 The Invisible World. [Book III. 

any of them should bring evil with him from the moment of his 
first being, is the exploded heresy of a Manes ; a man fit for his 
name ; and, if Prateolus may be beheved, of the Trinitarians : 
yea, blasphemy, rather ; casting mu'e in the face of the most pure 
and holy Deity. For, from an absolute goodness what can pro- 
ceed but good I And if any then of those spirits could have been 
originally evil, whence could he pretend to fetch it ? Either there 
must be a predominant principle of evil, or a derivation of it from 
the fountain of infinite goodness ; either of which were very mon- 
sters of impiety. All were once glorious spirits : sin changed 
their hue, and made many of them ugly devils. 

Now, straight I am apt to think, " Lord, how should sin come 
into the world ? how into angels ? God made all things good : sin 
could be no work of his. How should the good that he made 
produce the evil which he hates t ^' Even this curiosity must 
receive an answer. 

The great God, when he would make his noblest creature, 
found it fit to produce him in the nearest likeness to himself; and 
therefore to endue him with perfection of understanding and free- 
dom of will : either of which being wanting, there could have 
been no excellency in that which was intended for the best. Such 
therefore did he make his angels. Their will, being made free, 
had power of their own inclinations; those free inclinations of 
some of them swayed them awry from that highest end, which 
they should have solely aimed at, to a faulty respect unto oblique 
ends of their own. 

Hence was the beo-innino- of sin : for as it falls out in causes 
efficient, that when the secondary agent swerves from the order 
and direction of the principal, straightways a fault thereupon 
ensues ; as when the leg, by reason of crookedness, fails of the 
performance of that motion which the appetitive power enjoined, 
a halting immediately follows : so it is in final causes also, as 
Aquinas acutely : when the secondary end is not kept in, under 
the order of the principal and highest end, there grows a sin of 
the will, whose object is ever good; but if a supposed and self- 
respective good be suffered to take the wall of the best and abso- 
lute good, the will instantly proves vicious. As therefore there 
can be no possible fault incident into the will of him who pro- 
pounds to himself as his only good the utmost end of all things, 
which is God himself; so, in whatsoever wilier, whose own par- 
ticular good is contained under the order of another higher good, 



Of the Evil Angels. 191 

there may, without God^s special confirmation, happen a sin in 
the will. Thus it was with these revolting angels : they did not 
order their own particular supposed good to the supreme and 
utmost end, but suffered their will to dwell in an end of their 
own; and by this means did put themselves into the place of 
God, not regulating their wills by another, superior, but making 
their will the rule of their own desires ; which was in effect to 
affect an equality with the Highest. Not that their ambition 
went so high as to aspire to an height of goodness or greatness 
equal to their infinite Creator ; this, as the great leader of the 
school hath determined it, could not fall into any intelligent 
nature, since it were no other than to affect his own not-being ; 
forasmuch as there can be no being at all without a distinction 
of degrees and subordination of beings. 

This was, I suppose, the threshold of leaving their first estate. 
Now it was with angelical spirits as it is with heavy bodies ; 
when they began to fall they went down at once, speedily passing 
through many degrees of wickedness. Let learned Gerson see 
upon what grounds he conceives that in the beginning their sin 
might be venial ; afterwards, arising to the height of malicious- 
ness : whom Salmeron seconds by seven reasons, alleged to that 
purpose ; labouring to prove that, before their precipitation, they 
had large time and place of repentance. The point is too high 
for any human determination : this we know too well by our- 
selves, that even the will of man, when it is once let loose to sin, 
finds no stay ; how much more of those active spirits, which, by 
reason of their simple and spiritual nature, convert themselves 
wholly to what they do incHne ! 

What were the particular grounds of their defection and ruin, 
what was their first sin, it is neither needful nor possible to know. 
I see the wrecks of this curiosity in some of the ancients ; who, 
misguiding themselves by a false compass of misapplied texts, have 
split upon those shelves which their miscarriage shall teach me 
to avoid. If they have made Lucifer (that is, the morning star) 
a devil, and mistake the king of Babylon for the prince of dark- 
ness, as they have palpably done, I dare not follow them. Rather 
let me spend my thoughts in wondering at the dreadful justice 
and the incomprehensible mercy of our great and holy God ; who, 
having cast these apostate angels into hell, and reserved them in 
everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great 
day, hath yet graciously found out a way to redeem miserable 



192 The Invisible World. [Book III. 

mankind from that horrible pit of destruction. It is not for me 
to busy myself in finding out reasons of difference, for the aggra- 
vation of the sin of angels and abatement of man's ; as, that sin 
began in them, they were their own tempters ; that they sinned 
irreparably, since their fall was to them as death is to us : how- 
ever it were, cursed be the man who shall say, that the sin of anj' 
creature exceeds the power of thy mercy, God, which is no 
other than thyself, infinite. While, therefore, I lay one hand 
upon my mouth, I lift up the other in a silent Avonder, with the 
blessed apostle, and say, How unsearchable are thy judgments, 
and thy ways past finding out ! 

Sect. II. — Of the Number of Ajwstate Spirits. 

Who can but tremble to think of the dreadful precipice of 
these damned angels, which, from the highest pitch of heaven, 
were suddenly thrown down into the dungeon of the nethermost 
hell? Who can but tremble to think of their number, power, malice, 
cunning, and deadly machinations ? 

Had this defection been single, yet it had been fearful : should 
but one star fall down from heaven, with what horror do we 
think of the wreck that would ensue to the whole world ! how 
much more, when the great dragon draws down the third part 
of the stars with his tail ! And lo, these angels were as so many 
spiritual stars in the firmament of glory. It was here, as in the 
rebellion of great peers, the common sort are apt to take part in 
any insurrection. 

There are orders and degrees even in the region of confusion : 
we have learned of our Saviour to know there is a devil and his 
angels ; and Jewish tradition hath told us of a prince of devils. 

It was in all likehhood some prime angel of heaven that first 
started aside from his station, and led the ring of this highest and 
first revolt : millions sided with him, and had their part both in 
his sin and punishment. 

Now, how formidable is the number of these evil and hostile 
spirits ! Had we the eyes of that holy hermit — for such the first 
were — we might see the air full of these malignant spirits, laying 
snares for miserable mankind, And if the possessors of one poor 
demoniac could style themselves Legion — a name that, in the truest 
account, contains no less than ten cohorts, and every cohort fifty 
companies, and every company twenty -five soldiers, to the number 
of one thousand two hundred and twent^^-five — what an army of 



Of the Evil Angels. 193 

these hellish fiends do we suppose is that wherewith whole man- 
kind is beleaguered all the world over ! Certainly no man livino-^ 
as Tertullian and Nyssen have too truly observed, can, from the 
very hour of his nativity to the last minute of his dissolution, be 
free from one of these spiritual assailants, if not many, at once. 
The ejected spirit returns to his former assault with seven worse 
than himself. 

Even where there is equality of power, inequality of number 
must needs be a great advantage ; an Hercules himself is no 
match for two antagonists. Yea, were their strength much less 
than ours, if we be but as a flock of goats feeding upon the 
hills, when the evil spirits, as the Midianites and Amalekites were 
against Israel, are like grasshoppers in the valley, what hope, 
what possibility were there, if we were left in our own hands for 
safety or prevalence ? 

But now, alas I their number is great, but their power is more. 
Even these evil angels are styled by him that knew them no less 
than principalities and powers, and rulers of the darkness of this 
ivorld, and spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places. They lost 
not their strength when they left their station. It is the rule of 
Dionysius, too true, I fear, that in the reprobate angels their 
natural abilities still hold^. No other than desperate, therefore, 
were the condition of whole mankind, if we were turned loose into 
the lists to grapple with these mighty spirits. 

Courage, my soul, and, together with it, victory. Let thine 
eyes be but open, as Gehazi^s, and thou shalt see more with us 
than against us. One good angel is able to chase whole troops 
of these malignant ; for though their natural powers, in regard of 
the substance of them, be still retained, yet, in regard of the 
exercise and execution of them, they are abated, and restrained 
by the overruUng order of divine justice and mercy; from which, 
far be that infinite incongruity, that evil should prevail above 
goodc. The same God, therefore, who so disposeth the issue of 
these human contentions, that the race is not to the swift nor the 
battle to the strong, cowardiseth and daunteth these mighty and 
insolent spirits ; so as they cannot stand before one of these glori- 
ous angels, nor prevail any further than his most wise providence 
hath contrived to permit, for his own most holy purposes. 

^ Naturalia in damnatis angelis manent splendidissima. 

•^ The original has God ; but 1 suspect it is an error of the press for good. — 
Pkatt. 

BP. HALL, VOL. VIII. O 



194 The Invisible World. [Book TIT. 

However yet we be upon these grounds safe in the good hands 
of the Almighty, and of those his blessed guardians to whom he 
hath committed our charge, yet it well befits us to take notice 
of those powerful executions of the evil angels, which it pleaseth 
the great Arbiter of the world to give way unto, that we may 
know what cause we have both of vigilance and gratitude. 

Sect. III. — Of the Power of Devils. 

No dwarf will offer to wrestle with a giant. It is an argument 
of no small power as well as boldness of that proud spirit, that he 
durst strive with Michael the archangel : and thouo'h he were as 
then foiled in the conflict, 3'et he ceaseth not still to oppose his 
hierarchy to the celestial ; and, not there prevailing, he pours 
out his tyranny, where he is suffered, on this inferior world ; one 
while fetching down fire from heaven, which the messenger called 
the fire of God, upon the flocks and shepherds of Job, Job i., 16; 
another while blustering to the air, with hurrying winds and 
furious tempests, breaking down the strongest towers and turning 
up the stoutest oaks, tearing asunder the hardest rocks and rend- 
ing of the tops of the firmest mountains ; one while swelling up 
the raging sea to sudden inundations, another while causing the 
earth to totter and tremble under our feet. 

Would we descend to the particular demonstrations of the power- 
ful operations of evil spirits this discourse would have no end. 

If we do but cast our eyes upon Jannes and Jambres, the 
Egyptian sorcerers (in whom we have formerly instanced in an- 
other treatise to this purpose), we shall see enough to wonder at. 
How close did they for a time follow Moses at the heels, imi- 
tating those miraculous works which God had appointed and 
enabled him to do for Pharaoh's conviction! Had not the faith 
of that worthy servant of God been invincible, how blank must 
he needs have looked, to see his great works patterned by those 
presumptuous rivals ! Doth Moses turn his rod into a serpent ? 
every of their rods crawleth, hisseth, as well as his. Doth he 
smite the waters into blood ? their waters are instantly as bloody 
as his. Doth he fetch frogs out of Nilus into Pharaoh's bed- 
chamber and bosom, and into the ovens and kneading-troughs 
of his people ? they can store Egypt with loathsome cattle as well 
as he. 

All this while Pharaoh knows no difference of a God; and 
hardly yields whether Jannes or Moses be the better man ; al- 



Of the Evil A nyeis. 19-5 

though he may easily be decided it out of the very acts done : he 
saw Moseses serpent devoured theirs, so as now there was neither 
serpent nor rod ; and while they would be turning their rod into 
a serpent, both rod and serpent were lost in the serpent, which 
returned into a rod : he saw that those sorcerers who had brought 
the frogs could not remove them ; and soon after sees those 
jugglers, who pretended to make serpents, blood, frogs, cannot, 
when God pleaseth to restrain them, make so much as a louse. 

But, supposing the sufferance of the Almighty, who knows what 
limits to prescribe to these infernal powers ? They can beguile 
the senses, mock the phantasy, work strongly by philtres upon 
the affections, assume the shapes of man or beast, inflict grievous 
torment on the body, convey strange things insensibly into it, 
transport it from place to place in quick motions, cause no less 
sudden disparitions of it, heal diseases by charms and spells, frame 
hideous apparitions, and, in short, by applying active powers to 
passive subjects, they can produce wonderful effects ; each of all 
which were easy to be instanced in whole volumes, if it were need- 
ful, out of history and experience. 

Who then, God, who is able to stand before these sons of 
Anak ? what are we in such hands ? match desperately un- 
equal, of weakness with power, flesh with spirit, man with devils ! 

Away with this cowardly difiidence. Cheer up thyself, my 
soul, against these heartless fears, and know, the advantage is on 
thy side. Could Samson have been firmly bound hand and foot 
by the Philistine cords, so as he could not have stirred those 
mighty limbs of his, what boy or girl of Gath or Askelon would 
have feared to draw near, and spurn that awed champion ? No 
other is the condition of our dreadful enemies : they are fast 
bound up with the adamantine chains of God's most merciful and 
inviolable decree, and forcibly restrained from their desired 
mischief. Who can be afraid of a muzzled and tied up mastiff"? 
Avhat woman or child cannot make faces at a fierce lion or a 
bloody Bajazet locked up fast in an iron grate ? 

Were it not for this strong and strait curb of Divine providence, 
what good man could breathe one minute upon earth ? The de- 
moniac in the gospel could break his iron fetters in pieces through 
the help of his legion : those devils that possessed him could not 
break theirs ; they are fain to sue for leave to enter into swine ; 
neither had obtained it, in all likelihood, but for a just punish- 
ment to those Gadarene owners. How sure may we then be, that 

2 



196 The Invisible World. [Book III. 

this just hand of Omnipotence will not suffer these evil ones to 
tyrannize over his chosen vessels for their hurt ! How safe are 
we, since their power is limited, our protection infinite ! 

Sect. IV. — Of the Knoivledge and Malice of Wicked Spirits. 

Who can know how much he is bound to God for safeouard if 
he do not apprehend the quality of those enemies wherewith he 
is encompassed, whose knowledge and skill is no whit inferior to 
their power ? They have not the name of dcemons^ for nothing : 
theu' natural knowledge was not forfeited by their fall : the wis- 
dom of the infinite Giver of it knows how rather to turn it to the 
use of his own glory. However, therefore, they are kept off from 
those divine illuminations which the good angels receive from 
God, yet they must needs be granted to have such a measure of 
knowledge as cannot but yield them a formidable advantage. 
For, as spirits, being not stripped of their original knowledge to- 
gether with their glory, they cannot but know the natures and 
constitutions of the creatures; and thereby, their tempers, dis- 
positions, inclinations, conditions, faculties ; and therewith, their 
wants, their weakness and obnoxiousness ; and thereupon, strongly 
conjecture at their very thoughts and intentions, and the likeli- 
hood of their repulses or prevaihngs : out of the knowledge of the 
causes of things, they can foresee such future events as have a 
dependence thereon. To which if we shall add the improvement 
which so many thousand years"' experience can yield to active and 
intelligent spirits, together with the velocity of their motions, and 
the concurrent intelligence which those powers of darkness hold 
with each other, we shall see cause enough to disparage our own 
simplicity, to tremble at our own danger, and to bless God for 
our indemnity. 

But -if unto all these we shall take notice of their malice, no 
whit inferior to their power and knowledge, we cannot but be 
transported with wonder at our infinite obligations to the blessed 
Majesty of heaven, who preserves us from the rage of so spiteful, 
cunning, mighty enemies, Satan carries hostility in his very 
name, and, answerably, in his wicked nature : hostility to the 
God that made him, as the avenger of his sin ; hostility, for 
his sake, to the creature which that God made good : his enmity 
did. as himself, descend from the highest, for it began at the Al- 
mighty, and remains as implacable as impotent. 

•1 Ob scientiam nominati. Aug. 1. ix. [c. xx.] de Civ. Dei. 



Of the Evil Angels. 197 

It is a bold and uncouth story, and scarce safe to relate, which 
I find in the Book of Conformity, reported, as recited by a de- 
moniac woman, from the mouth of a certain friar, named Jacobus 
de Pozali, in his sermon : That St. Macarius once went about to 
make peace betwixt God and Satan : that it pleased God to say, 
" If the devil will acknowledge his fault, I will pardon him :" to 
which the evil spirit returned answer, " I will never acknowledge 
any fault of mine ; yea, that crucified Saviour should rather cry 
me mercy for keeping me thus long in hell :" to whom Macarius 
said, as he well might, ''Avoid, Satan!" I know not whether 
more to blame their saint, if they report him right, for too much 
charity or for too little grace and wit in so presumptuous an en- 
deavour. The very treaty was in him blasphemous; the answer, 
no other than could be expected from a spirit obdured in malice 
and desperate in that obduredness. 

The truth is, he hates us, because he hated God first ; and, like 
the enraged panther, tears the picture because he cannot reach 
the person whom it represents. 

He that made him an angel, tells us what he is ; since he made 
himself a devil, even a manslayer from the beginning. His very 
trade is murder and destruction, and his executions unweariable : 
he goes about continually like a roaring lion, seeking whom he 
tnay devour. 

It is no other than a marvellous mystery of divine state, too 
deep for the shallowness of human souls to reach into, that God 
could with one word of his powerful command destroy and dis- 
solve all the powers of hell ; yet he knows it best not to do it : 
only we know he hath a justice to glorify as well as a mercy ; 
and that he knows how to fetch more honour to himself by 
drawing good out of evil than by the amotion and prevention of 
evil. Glory be to that infinite power, justice, mercy, providence, 
that contrives all things, both in heaven and earth and hell, to 
the highest advantage of his own blessed Name, and to the greatest 
benefit of his elect. 

Sect. V. — The Variety of the Spiritual Assaults of Evil Spirits. 

Out of this helhsh mixture of power, skill, malice, do proceed 
all the deadly machinations of these infernal spirits which have 
enlarged their kingdom and furnished the pit of destruction. 

It was a great word of the Chosen Vessel, We are not ignorant 
of Satan's devices, 2 Cor. ii. j 1 . blessed apostle, thy illuminated 



198 The Invisible World. [Book III. 

soul, which saw the height of heaven, might also see the depth of 
hell ; our weak eyes are not able to pierce so low. 

That Satan is full of crafty devices, we know too well ; but 
what those devices are is beyond our reach. Alas I we know not 
the secret projects of silly men like ourselves; yea, who knows 
the crooked windings of his own heart ? much less can we hope 
to attain unto the understanding of these infernal plots and stra- 
tagems; such knowled(je is too wonderful for us: our clew hath 
not line enough to fathom these depths of Satan. 

But though we be not able possibly to descry those infinite and 
hidden particularities of diabolical art and cunning, yet our woful 
experience and observation hath taught us some general heads of 
these mischievous practices: divers whereof lam not unwilling to 
learn and borrow of that great master of meditation, Gerson^, 
the learned chancellor of Paris, a man singularly acquainted with 
temptations. 

One while, therefore, that evil one lays before us the incommo- 
dities, dangers, wants, difficulties of our callings, to dishearten us, 
and draw us to impatience and listlessness, and rather than fail, 
will make piety a colour of laziness; another while, he spurs 
up our diligence in our worldly vocation, to withdraw us from 
holy duties. 

One while, he hides his head, and refrains from tempting, that 
we may think ourselves secure, and slacken our care of defence; 
another while, he seems to yield, that he may leave us proud of 
the victory. 

One while, he tills us on to our overhard task of austere mor- 
tification, that he may tire our piety, and so stupify us with an 
heartless melancholy ; another while, he takes us oif from any 
higher exercises of virtue, as superfluous. 

One while, he turns and fixes our eyes upon other men's sins, 
that we may not take view of our own ; another while, he ampli- 
fies the worth and actions of others, to breed in us either envy or 
dejection. 

One while, he humours our zeal in all other virtuous proceed- 
ings, for but the colour of one secret vice ; another while, he lets 
us loose to all uncontrolled viciousness, so as we be content to 
make love to some one virtue. 

One while, under the pretence of discretion, he discourages us 
from good, if any way dangerous enterprises ; another while, he 

" Gersoji, de Variis Diaboli Tentationibus. 



Of the Evil Angels. ] 99 

is apt to put us upon bold hazards^ with tlie contempt of fear or 
wit, that we may be guilty of our own miscarriage. 

One while^ he works suspicion in love, and suggests miscon- 
structions of well meant words or actions, to cause heartburninfr 
between dear friends ; another while, under a pretence of favour, 
he kills the soul with flattery. 

One while, he stirs up our charity to the public performance 
of some beneficial works, only to win us to vainglory ; another 
while, he moves us, for avoiding the suspicion or censure of sin- 
gularity, to fashion ourselves to the vicious guises of our sociable 
neighbours. 

One while, he persuades us to rest in the outward act done, as 
meritoriously acceptable ; another while, under a colour of hu- 
mihty, he dissuades us from those good duties whereby we might 
be exemplary to others. 

One while, he heartens us in evil gettings, under pretence of 
the opportunity of Hberal almsgiving ; another while, he closes 
our hands in a rigorous forbearance of needful mercy, under a 
fair colour of justice. 

One while, he incites us, under a pretence of zeal, to violate 
charity in unjust censures and violent executions ; another while, 
under pretence of mercy, to bear with gross sins. 

One while, he stirs us up, under a colour of charitable caution, 
to wound our neighbour with a secret detraction ; another while, 
out of carnal affections, he would make us the panders of others' 
vices. 

One while, he sets on the tongue to an inordinate motion, that 
many words may let fall some sin; another while, he restrains 
it in a sullen silence, out of an aiFectation of a commendable 
modesty. 

One while, out of a pretended honest desire to know some secret 
and useful truth, he hooks a man into a busy curiosity, and unawares 
entangles the heart in unclean affections ; another while, he brooks 
many a sin with only the bashfulness of inquiry. 

One while, ho injects such pleasing thoughts of fleshly delights, 
as may at the first seem safe and inoffensive, which, by a delayed 
entertainment, prove dangerous and inflaming ; another while, he 
overlays the heart with such swarms of obscene suggestions, that, 
when it should be taken up with holy devotion, it hath work 
enough to repel and answer those sinful importunities. 

One while, he moves us to an ungrounded confidence in God, 



200 The Invisible World. [Book III. 

for a condescent or deliverance, that upon our disappointment he 
may work us to impatience, or, upon our prevailing, to a pride 
and overweening opinion of our mistaken faith ; another while, 
he casts into us glances of distrust, where we have sure ground of 
belief. 

One while, he throws many needless scruples into the conscience, 
for a causeless perplexing of it, affrighting it even from lawful 
actions ; another while, he labours so to widen the conscience, 
that even gross sins may pass down unfelt. 

One while, he will seem friendly in suggesting advice to listen 
unto good counsel, which yet he more strongly keeps us off from 
taking, for a further obduration; another while, he moves us to 
shght all the good advice of others, out of a persuasion of our own 
self-sufficiency, that we may be sure to fall into evil. 

One while, he smooths us up in the good opinion of our own 
gracious disposition, that we may rest in our measure ; another 
while, he beats us down with a disparagement of our true graces, 
that we may be heartless and unthankful. 

One while, he feeds us with a sweet contentment in a colourable 
devotion, that we may not care to work our hearts to a solid 
piety ; another while, he endeavours to freeze up our hearts, with 
a dulness and sadness of spirit, in our holy services, that they 
may prove irksome and we negligent. 

One while, he injects lawful, but unseasonable motions of requi- 
site employments, to cast off our minds from due intention in 
prayers, hearing, meditation ; another while, he is content we 
should overweary ourselves with holy tasks, that they may grow 
tediously distasteful. 

One while, he woos a man to glut himself with some pleasurable 
sin, upon pretence that this satiety may breed a loathing of that 
whereof he surfeits ; another while, he makes this spiritual drunk- 
enness but an occasion of further thirst. 

One while, he suggests to a man the duty he owes to the main- 
tenance of his honour and reputation, though unto blood ; another 
while, he bids him be tongue-proof, that he may render the party 
shamelessly desperate in evil doing. 

One while, he allows us to pray long, that we may love to hear 
ourselves speak, and may languish in our devotion ; another while, 
he tells us there is no need of vocal prayers, since God hears our 
thoughts. 

One while, he urgeth us to a busy search and strong conclusion 



Of the Evil Angels. 201 

of the unfailable assurance of our election to glory upon slippery 
and unsure grounds ; another while, to a careless indifferency and 
stupid neglect of our future estate, that we may perish through 
security. 

One while, slighting the measure of contrition as unsufficient ; 
another while, working the heart to take up with the least velleity 
of penitent sorrow, without straining it to any further afflictive 
degrees of true penance. 

One while, suggesting such dangerous points of our self-exami- 
nation, that the resolution is every way unsafe, so as we must pre- 
sume upon our strength if we determine affirmatively, if negatively, 
decline towards despair; another while, encouraging a man, by the 
prosperous event of his sin, to react it, and, by the hard successes 
of good actions, to forbear them. 

One while, under pretence of giving glory to God for his graces, 
stirring up the heart to a proud overvaluing o\ir own virtues and 
abilities ; another while, stripping God of the honour of his gifts 
by a causeless pusillanimity. 

One while, aggravating our unworthiness to be sons, servants, 
subjects, guests, almsmen of the holy and great God; another 
while, upon some poor works of piety or charity, raising our 
conceits to a secret gloriation of our worthiness, both of accept- 
ance and reward, and God's beholdingness to us. 

Shortly — for it were easy to exceed in instances — one while 
casting undue fears into the tender hearts of weak regenerates 
of God's just desertions, and of their own sinful deficiencies ; an- 
other while, puffing them up with ungrounded presumptions of 
present safety and future glory. 

These, and a thousand more such arts of deceit, do the evil 
spirits practise upon the poor soul of wretched man, to betray it 
to everlasting destruction. And if at any time they shall pretend 
fair respects, it is a true observation of a strict votary. That the 
devils of consolation are worse than the afflictive. my soul, 
what vigilance can be sufficient for thee while thou art so beset 
with variety of contrary temptations ! 

Sect. VI. — Of the Apparitions and assumed Shajyes of Evil 

Spirits. 
Besides these mental and ordinary onsets, we find when these 
malignant spirits have not stuck, for a further advantage, to 
clothe themselves with the appearances of visible shapes ; not of 



202 The Invisible World. [Book III. 

meaner creatures only, but of men, both living and dead, yea, 
even of the good angels themselves f. 

It were easy to write volumes of their dreadful and illusive 
appai'itions : others have done it before me : my pen is for other 
use. The times are not past the ken of om' memory since 
the frequent, and in some part true, reports of those familiar 
devils, fairies, and goblins, wherewith many places were com- 
monly haunted : tiie rarity whereof, in these latter times, is suf- 
ficient to descry the difference betwixt the state of ignorant 
superstition and the clear light of the gospel. I doubt not but 
there were manv frauds intermixed both in the actino; and re- 
lating divers of these occurrences ; but he that shall detract from 
the truth of all, may as well deny there were men living in those 
ages before us. Neither can I make question of the authentic 
records of the examinations? and confessions of witches and sor- 
cerers, in several regions of the world, agreeing in the truth of 
their horrible pacts with Satan, of their set meetings with evil 
spirits, their beastly homages and conversations. I should hate 
to be guilty of so much incredulity as to charge so many grave 
judges and credible historians with lies. 

Amongst such fastidious choice of whole dryfats of voluminous 
relations, I cannot forbear to single out that one famous story ^ of 
Magdalene de la Croix, in the year of our Lord Christ 1545, who, 
being born at Cordova in Spain, whether for the indigence or devo- 
tion of her parents, was at five years' age put into a convent of nuns. 
At that age, an evil spirit presented himself to her in the form of a 
blackmoor, foul and hideous ; she stai'tled at the sight, not without 
much horror ; but with fair speeches and promises of all those gay 
toys wherewith children are wont to be delighted, she was wont 
to hold society with him, not without strong charges of silence 
and secrecy ; in the mean time giving proof of a notable quick 
wit, and more than the ordinary ability incident into her age ; 
so as she was highly esteemed, both of the young novices and 
of the aged nuns. No sooner was she come to the age of twelve 

f " Diabolus, gloriosa forma, diade- ipse ; ut refert idem Sever. Sulp. in vita 

mate gemmeo et aureo redimitus, veste Martini, [c. xxv.] 

regia indutus, apparuit Martino pre- s Bodin. Dasmonomania ; ubique. 

canti ; se Christum dicit : cui, post si- •> Sim. Goul. Hist, admirables. Cas- 

lentium aliquod, Sanctus : Ego Chri- side Reney en ses Relations. Zuinger. 

stum, nisi in illo habitu fonnaque qua Theatre de vie Human. [Zuinger. 

passus est, nisi cmcis stigmata profe- Theatrum Vitae hum. vol. iii. b. 4. p. 

rentem, venisse non credam : hinc eva- ^(^7,. Basil. 1571.] Bodin. Dtemonoma- 

imit." Hoc narravit Sulpitio- Martinus nia, 1. ii. 



Of the Evil Angels. 203 

or thirteen years, than the devil soHcits her to marry with him ; 
and, for her dowry, promises her, that, for the space of thirty 
years, she shall live in such fame and honour for the opinion of 
her sanctity, as that she shall be for that time the wonder of all 
Spain. While this wicked spirit held his unclean conversation 
with her in her chamber, he delegates another of his hellish com- 
plices to supply the place and form of his Magdalene in the 
church, in the cloister, in all their meetings ; not without mar- 
vellous appearance of gravity and devotion : disclosing unto her 
also the aifairs of the world abroad ; and furnishing her with 
such advertisements as made her wondered at ; and won h,er the 
reputation, not of an holy virgin only, but of a prophetess. Out 
of which heio-ht of estimation, although she was not for vears 
capable of that dignity, she was by the general votes of the 
sisterhood chosen unanimouslv to be the abbess of that convent. 
Wonderful were the feats which she then did : the priest cries 
out in his celebration, that he missed one of the holy host 
which he had consecrated ; and, lo, that was by her wonted angel 
invisibly conveyed to holy Magdalene : the wall that was betwixt 
her lodging and the quire, at the elevation of the host, clave 
asunder, that holy Magdalene might see that sacred act : and, 
which was yet more notorious, on solemn festivals, when the nuns 
made their procession, Magdalene was in the sight of the be- 
holders lift up from the earth the height of three cubits, as if 
she should have been rapt up to heaven : and sometimes, while 
she bore in her arms a httle image of the child Jesus, new born 
and naked, weeping, like a true Magdalene, abundantly over the 
babe, her hair seemed by miracle suddenly lengthened, so low 
as to reach unto her ankles, for the covering of the naked child, 
which, so soon as she had laid aside that dear burden, returned 
suddenly to the wonted length. These, and many other the like 
miracles, made her so famous, that popes, emperors, the grandees 
of Spain, wrote to her, beseeching her in their letters to recom- 
mend their affairs to God in her powerful devotions, and in re- 
quiring her advice and advertisements in matters of high im- 
portance, as appeared afterwards by the letters found in her 
cabinet. And the great ladies of Spain and other parts would 
not wrap their new-born infants in any clouts or swaddling-bands 
but such as the sacred hands of abbess Magdalene had first 
touched and blessed. All the nuns of Spain were proud of so 
great an honour of their order, and such miraculous proofs of 



204 The Invisible World. [Book HI. 

their sanctity. At last it pleased God to lay open this notable 
fraud of the devil : for Magdalene, after thirty years' acquaint- 
ance with this paramour, having been abbess now twelve years, 
began to receive some remorse of her former practices ; and, 
growing to a detestation of her horrible society with that evil 
spirit, found means freely to discover to the visitors of her order 
all the whole carriage of this abominable and prodigious wicked- 
ness : although some credible, wise, and learned persons have re- 
ported, that she, perceiving the nuns to have taken secret notice of 
her foul pranks, lest she should run into a deserved condemnation, 
did, under the favour of those laws which give pardon to self- 
accusing offenders, voluntarily confess her monstrous villainy and 
impiety. This confession blanked many of her favourers and ad- 
mirers ; and seemed so strange, that it was held fit not to believe 
it without strict and legal examinations and proceedings. Mag- 
dalene was close imprisoned in her convent ; and, being called to 
question, confessed all this mystery of iniquity. Yet still her 
moor continued his illusions : for, vvhile she was fast locked up in 
her cell, with a strong guard upon her doors ; the nuns were no 
sooner come into the quire, towards morning, to say their matins, 
thq,n this deputy-apparition of Magdalene took up her wonted 
stall, and was seen devoutly tossing her beads amongst her sis- 
ters ; so as they thought the visitors had surely freed he