THE SOUL'S FAREWELL TO EARTH, AND APPROACHES TO HEAVEN. : SECT. I. Be thou ever, O 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, what hellish profanations, in atheous ruffians! what perfidiousness in friendship, what cozenage in contracts, what cruelty in revenges! shortly, what a 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 shews have deluded the eyes of credulous spectators, I know thee for an impostor: deceive, henceforth, those, that trust thee; for me, I am out of the reach of thy fraud, out of the power of thy malice." Thus do thou, O my soul, when thou art raised up to this height of thy fixed contemplation, cast down thine eyes contemptuously 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 a heart-breaking disappointment; windy proffers, mocking thee with sudden retractions; bitter pills, in sugar; poison, in a golden cup? It shewed thee, perhaps, stately palaces, but stuffed with 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 thy heaven and, as those, that have ascended to the top of some Athos or Teneriff, see 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. SECT. II. Ir will not be long, O my soul, ere thou shalt absolutely leave the world, in the place of thy 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 separation; and these, rightly disposed, have power to exempt thee, beforehand, from the interest of this inferior world, and to advance 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 aspirest: this must be shaken off, if thou wouldest attain to any capacity of happiness: even in this sense, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. It behoves thee to be, so far as this composition will admit, spiritualized; ere thou 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 VOL. VIII. X 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 without and above them. It is enough, 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 Incomprehensible 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 sufficiently 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 splendor were but darkness to their All-glorious Creator. Thou canst not yet hope to see him, as he is: but, lo, thou beholdest 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, O my soul, supply in wonder. Never any mortal man, O God, durst sue to see thy face, save that one entire servant of thine, whose 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, O Lord, to presume so high. Only let me see thee as thou hast bidden me; and but so, as not to behold thee, after thy gracious revelation, 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. SECT. III. OH, the infiniteness of thine Almighty Power, which thou not hast, but art beyond the possibility 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 |