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 From the Vertues, it receiveth power, by the which it constantly fighting is strengthened against the enemies of truth, for the reward of which we run a race in this life; from the powers against the enemies of this earthly Tabernacle: from the Dominations, it hath help by the which we can subject any domestick enemy we carry along with us, and can obtain our desired end. From the Thrones, we are knit together, and being collected into our selves, we fix our memory on those eternall visions: From the Cherubins, is light of mind, power of wisdom, very high phantasies and figures, by the which we are able to contemplate even the divine things; From the Seraphins, that by the perfect flame of love we may at length inhere in them: These are the degrees, these the ladders, by the which men easily ascend to all kinds of powers by a certain naturall connexion and chariot, according to the diverse disposition of body and mind, and by the favour of the Stars, in the disposing of the body, and of the Intelligences ruling them, the nature of which the soul in its descense putteth on, even as light the colour of the glasse, through which it passeth; the supream power of the Creator favouring, from whom is all good, and without which no good nor perfect thing can be obtained; Therefore all those do labour in vain, who trusting only on the course of nature, and the power and favour of inferiour things, do think to attain to divine things; and those who faining to have a foot in the heavens, do endeavour to receive those things from the favour of the heavens, which ought to be received from God alone; for these inferiors, I mean animals, Herbs, stones, metals, their power subservient to the heaven; but the heaven from the Intelligences; but these from God, in whom all things pre-exist in the greatest power; as in man the little world there is not a member which hath not correspondence with some element, plant, intelligence, and with some measure and numeration in the Archetype: as we have shewen before.

Chapter xxxix. How the superior Influences, seing they are


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 good by nature, are depraved in these inferior thing, and are made causes of evil.

Seeing every power and vertue is from above, from God, from the Intelligences and Stars, who can neither erre nor do evill, it is necessary, that all evill, and whatsoever is found disagreeing and dissonant in these inferiour things, do proceed, not from the malice of the Influence, but from the evill disposition of the receiver; thus Chysippus rightly sang,

They do like fooles accuse the Gods falsly, Make them the cause of all their misery, When as their folly hurts themselves---

Hence Jupiter calling to minde the case of Aegisthus slain by Orestes, by Homer in the counsel of the Gods, saith,

Us Gods do men accuse (what vice is this?) To be the cause, fountain of what's amiss, When they themselves by their own wickedness Run into danger-

When therefore the perversity of the subject receiveth the Influences of the perverse, or its debility cannot endure the efficacy of the superiors, then by the Influence of the heavens thus received into a matter full of discords, doth result something dissonant, deformed and evill; yet the celestiall powers alwaies remain good, which while they exist in themselves, and from the giver of light have their Influence by the holy Intelligences and the heavens, even till they shall come to the Moon, their Influence is good, as it were in the first degree; but then when it is received in a viler subject, it also is vilified; then also in respect of the different nature of the recipient it is received after diverse manners, and by the qualities disagreeing in the same subject amongst themselves,

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 it also is varied and patiently suffreth in the subject; whence from all comprehended in the subject, at length some other thing doth result than the Superiors send down; therefore the hurtfull quality in these Inferiors, is far different from the influx of the heavens; and therefore as the distemper of the bleareyed, is not to be imputed to the light, nor burnings to the fire, nor wounds to the sword, nor fetters and Prisons to the Judge, but to the evill disposed and offenders; so neither is the fault of wicked ones to be cast on the celestial Influences: Therefore we being well disposed, the celestial influences cooperate all things for good; but being evill disposed, and having for our sins, that divine good, which was in us, departed from us, all things work for evill: therefore the cause of all our evills is sinne, which is the disorder and distemper of our soul; from the which then, thus evilly governing, or falling down or declining from that which the celestial influences require, all things rebel, and are distempered for our destruction: then in mans body, otherwise most temperate and composed with most sweet Harmony, the distemper of the Elements beginneth, evill humors arise: and even the good being disordered and severed from one another, by a certain vicissitude both vex and torment the body: then is a most vehement dissonance perceived, either by superfluity or diminution, or some intrinsecal accident, or by superfluous meat, whence superfluous humors are generated, and by the same cause infirmities follow; yea the animal spirits, the bridle being broken, do fall to contention. Then the celestial influences, otherwise of themselves good, are made hurtfull to us, even as the light of the sun to eyes ill disposed: Then Saturn darteth down anguish, tediousnes, melancholy, madnes, sadnes, obstinacy, rigidnes, blasphemy, desperation, lying, Apparitions, affrightments, walkings of the dead, stirrings of Divels: Jupiter then sendeth down covetousnes, evil occasions to get wealth, and tyranny: Mars, furious wrath, prophane arrogancy, violent boldness, fierce stubbornnes: but the Sun imperious pride, and insatiable ambition: Venus, the deceits of concupiscence, lascivious


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 loves and filthy lusts: Mercury deceits, cousenages, lyes, subtile desires of evill, propensity to sin; The Moon the inconstant progress of all things, and whatsoever is contrary to mans nature: and by this means man himself by reason of his unlikeness with the heavenly things receiveth hurt, whence he ought to reap benefit: by reason of the same dissonancy with the heavenly things (as Proclus saith) men also are subjected even to wicked spirits who as the officers of God do discharge themselves in punishing them: Then do they suffer grievances by evill spirits, even untill they are again expiated, by due purgations, and man returneth to a divine nature: therefore an excellent Magitian can prohibite many mischifes about to fall on him from the disposition of the Stars, when he foreknoweth their nature by preventing, taking heed, and defending, least they should meet him, and least an ill disposed subject, as we have said, should receive hurt whence it ought to reap benefit.

Chapter xl. That on every man a divine character is imprinted, by the vertue of which man can attain the working of miracles.

By no small experience it is found that a certain power of ruling and predominating is implanted in man by nature; for (Pliny testifieth) that an Elephant meeting a man wandring in a desart, is reported to shew himself gentle and courteous, and to shew the way to him: and the same creature also is said, before he seeth man, to tremble, to stand still, to look about, to quake at the steps of man, for fear of treachery: in like manner the Tiger, the most fierce of all beasts, at the sight of man doth remove her yong ones; and more of this kinde we read in divers authors, who have writ great volumes of creatures; but from whence do these animals know, that man is to be feared, whom they never saw: and if they have seen and known, whence do they fear him, seeing they do excell him in greatnes, force and swiftnes? what is this nature of man, striking this terror on wild beasts? all the Historiographers of


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 animals do finde out and grant this, but have left to others to teach and prove it. Concerning this therefore Apollonius Tyaneus (as we read in Philostratus) seeing a child leading a huge Elephant, answerind Damus asking him, whence came that obedience of so huge a Creature to the little child: That it was from a certain active terror, implanted in man by his creator, which inferiour creatures and all animals perceiving do fear and reverence man, which is as it were a terrifying Character, and a seal of God imprinted on man, by the which every thing is subject to him, and acknowledges him superior, whither it be servant or animal. For otherwise neither could a child rule his herd and Elephants, neither could a King terrify his people, nor the Judge the guilty. Therefore this Character is imprinted on man from the divine Idea which the Cabalists of the Hebrew call Pahad ãäô and the left hand, or sword, of God: furthermore man hath not only a seal by which he is feared, but also by the which he is beloved, the Idea of which in the divine numerations is called Hesed ãñä which signifieth Clemency, & the right hand and Scepter of God: from these divine numerations, by the intelligences and Stars, Seals and Characters are imprinted on us to every one according to his capacity and purity: which signes the first man created, without doubt did possess in all integrity and fulness, when all creatures being attracted by secret gentlenes, and subjected by terror, came to him as to their lord, that he might give them names: but after the sin of prevarication he fell from that dignity with all his posterity; yet that Character is not all together extinct in us. But by how much every one is laden with sin, by so much he is farther off from these divine Characters and receiveth less of them; and whence he ought to receive frendship and reverence, he falleth into the slavery and terror of others, both of animals and also men and devils: which Cain perceiving feared, saying to God, every one who findeth me, will kill me; for he feared beasts and devils, not only men, who were very few; but in the old times, many men who lived innocently, a very good life, as yet did enjoy that obedience


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 and power, as Sampson, David and Daniel over the Lions, Elisha over the Bear, Paul over the Viper; and many Anchorites lived in the deserts, in Caves and Dens of wild beasts, not fearing, nor receiving any hurt; for as by sin that divine Character is obscured, so sin being purged and expiated, it again more and more shineth forth.

Chapter xli. What concerning man after death, diverse Opinions.

In generall it is appointed for all men once to dye; death is fatall to all; but one is naturall, another violent, another voluntarily received, another inflicted by humane lawes for offences, or by God for sin, that they seem not to have rendred a due to nature, but a punishment for sins; which (as the Hebrew Masters saith) God remitteth to none; Whence the Assembly delivered to Ezechiah, that after the house of the Sanctuary was pulled down, although there remained not any order of judiciary execution, yet there should be a four-fold kind of punishment by the which they might he condemned, that no man guilty of death should escape without retaliation; for he which had deserved to he stoned to death, was, God dispensing, either cast down headlong from the house, or trodden in peeces by wild beasts, or overwhelmed by ruine or fall; but he which had deserved to be burned, was either consumed by burnings, or finished he life either by venemous bitings, or stings of a serpent, or by poyson; but he which should dye by the sword, was killed either by the violence of the jurisdiction, or by the tumult of the people or faction, or by the treachery of thieves; he that ought to be hanged, was suffocated either in the waters, or extinguished by some other strangling punishment; and by the ground of this doctrine, that great Origen supposed the Gospel of Christ to be declared, He who useth the sword shall perrish by sword. Moreover the Ethnick Philosophers pronounced that retaliation


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 of this kinde is Adrastia, viz. an inevitable power of divine laws, by the which in courses to come, is recompensed to every one according to the reason and merits of his former life; so as he who unjustly ruled in the former life, in the other life should relapse into a servile state; he which hath polluted his hands with blood, should be compelled to undergo retaliation; he that lived a brutish life, should be precipitated and revolved into a brutish body; of these things Plotinus writeth in his book of the proper Genius of every one; saying, whosoever have kept humane propriety, do again arise men: but whosoever have used sense only, do return brute animals: yet so, as those who use sense especially together with wrath, do arise wild beasts; but whosoever use sense by concupisence and pleasure, do return lecherous and gluttenous beasts: but if they shall live, not by sense together with them, so much as by the degeneration of sense, plants grow up again with them; for the vitals only, or chiefly, are living, & all their care was that they might be turned into plants. But they which have lived being too much allured by musick, not being depraved in other things, are born again musical animals; and they which have raigned without reason, become Eagles, unles they have been tainted with any wickedness. But he which hath lived civilly and vertuously, returnes a man. And Solomon himself in the Proverbs calls man sometimes a Lion, Tiger, Bear, a Boare. Sometimes a Hare, a hunting dog, a Cony; sometimes a Pismire, a Hedghog, a Serpent, a Spider; sometimes an Eagle, a Stork, a Cock, or any other bird, and many such as these. But the Cabalists of the Hebrews do not admit that souls are turned into brutes: Yet they do not deny but that they that have wholly lost their reason, shall in an other life be left to a brutish affection and imagination: they assert also that souls are revolved hither thrice, and no more; because this number seems sufficiently to suffice for the purgation of sins, according to that of Job, He hath delivered my soul that it should not proceed to death, but should live, and see the light. Behold all these things doth God work three times through each, that he might reduce their souls from


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 corruption, and illuminate them with the light of the living. But now let us see what the Ancients opinion is concerning the dead. When man dies, his body returnes into the earth, from which it was taken: the spirit returnes to the heavens, from whence it descended, as saith the Preacher, The body returnes to the earth from whence it was, & the spirit returnes to God that gave it; which Lucretius hath expressed in these verses;

What came from earth to earth returnes again; What came from God, returnes from whence it came.

But Ovid expressed it better in these verses.

Four things of man there are; Spirit, Soul, Ghost, Flesh; These four fowre places keep and do posess. The earth covers flesh, the Ghost hovers o'er the grave. Orcus hath the soul, Stars do the spirit crave;

The flesh being forsaken, & the body being defunct of life, is called a dead Carkass; Which as say the divines of the Hebrews, is left in the power of the Demon Zazel, of whom it is said in the Scripture, Thou shalt eat dust all thy daies; and elswhere, The dust of the earth is his bread. Now man was created of the dust of the earth, whence also that Demon is called the Lord of flesh, and blood, whilest the body is not expiated and sanctified with due solemnities. Hence not without cause the Ancients ordained expiations of Carkasses, that that which was unclean might be sprinkled with holy water, perfumed with incense, be conjured with sacred orations, have lights set by, as long as it was above ground, and then at length be buried in a holy place. Hence Elpenor in Homer,


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 I beseech thee (saith he) Ulysses, be mindful of mee, and leave mee not unburied; lest being unburied I become an object of the Gods wrath. But the spirit of a man, which is of a sacred nature, and divine offspring, because it is alwaies faultless, becomes uncapable of any punishment; But the soul if it hath done well, rejoyceth together with the spirit, and going forth with its Aerial Chariot, passeth freely to the quires of the Heroes, or reacheth heaven, where it enjoys all its senses, and powers, a perpetuall blessed felicity, a perfect knowledge of all things, as also the divine vision, and possession of the kingdom of heaven, and being made partaker of the divine power bestows freely divers gifts upon these inferiors, as if it were an immortal God. But if it hath done ill, the spirit judgeth it, and leaves it to the pleasure of the divel, and the sad soul wanders about Hell without a spirit, like an image, as Dido complaines in Virgil;

And now the great image of mee shall go   Under the earth -

Wherefore then this soul being voyde of an intelligible essence, and being left to the power of a furious phantasy, is ever subjected by the torment of corporeall qualities, knowing that it is by the just judgement of God, for ever deprived of the divine vision (to which it was created) for its sins: the absence of which divine vision, as the Scripture testifies, is the ground of all evils, and the most greivous punishment of all, which the Scripture calls the pouring down of the wrath of God. This image therefore of the soul enters into the ghost as an Aerial body, with which being covered doth sometimes advise friends, sometimes stir up enemies, as Dido threatens Aeneas in Virgil saying,

I'll hunt thee, and thee tortures I will give.

For when the soul is separated from the body, the perturbations of the memory and sense remain. The Platonists say, that the souls, especially of them that are slain, stir up enemies, mans indignation not so much doing of it, as the divine Nemesis and Demon foreseeing, and permitting of it. So the spirit of Naboth (as the masters of the Hebrews interpret it) because in the end of its life it went forth with a desire of revenge, was made to execute revenge, the spirit of a lye, and went forth, God permitting it, a lying spirit in the mouth of all the


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 prophets, untill it made Achab go up unto Ramoth-Gilead. And Virgil himself together with the Pythagorians, and Platonists, to whom also our Austin assents, confesseth that separated souls retain the fresh memory of those things which they did in this life, and their will, whence he sings;

What care they Living had of horses brave And Arms, the same doth follow them to th' grave.

And Agazel in his book De Scientia Divina, and other Arabians, and Mahumatists which were Philosophers, think that the operations of the soul, being common to the conjoyned body, impresse upon the soul a Character of use and exercise, which it being separated will use, being strongly impressed to the like operations and passions which were not destroyed in life time. And although the body and organ be corrupted, yet the operation will not cease, but like affections and dispositions will remain. And these souls the ancients call with a common name Manes, whereof those that were in this life innocent, and purifyed by morall vertues, were very happy; And of them as Virgil sings,

- That did for their country die, With priests who in their lives vow'd chastity, And sacred poets, who pleas'd Phoebus best, Or by invented arts mans life assist, And others in their memories renowned, -

Although they departed this life without the justification of faith, and grace, as many Divines think, yet their souls were carryed without any suffering into happy pleasant fields; and as saith Virgil,

They went to places and to pleasant greens, And pleasant seats the pleasant groves between.

Where they enjoy certain wonderfull pleasures, as also sensitive, intellectuall,


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 and revealed knowledge; also perhaps they may be indoctrinated concerning faith, and justification, as those spirits long since to whom Christ preached the Gospel in prison. For as it is certain that none can be saved without the faith of Christ, so it is probable that this faith is preached to many Pagans and Saracens after this life, in those receptacles of souls unto salvation, and that they are kept in those receptacles, as in a common prison, untill the time comes when the great Judge shall examine our actions. To which opinion Lactantius, Ireneus, Clemens, Tertullian, Austin, Ambrose, and many more Christian writers do assent. But those souls which are impure, incontinent, depart wicked, do not enjoy such happy dreams, but wander full of most hideous Phantasmes, and in worser places, enjoying no free knowledge but what is obtained by concession, or manifestation, and with a continuall fleshy desire are subjected by reason of their corporeall corruption to the sense of pain, and fear swords, and knives. These without doubt Homer seemed to be sensible of, when in the eleventh book of his Odyssey he brings in the mother of Ulysses being dead, standing near to him offering sacrifice, but neither knowing him or speaking to him, whilst he with his sword drawn did keep off ghosts from the blood of the sacrifice. But after that Tyresia the prophetess advising of her, she had tasted of the sacrifice, and had drunk the blood, she presently knew her son, and crying spake to him. But the soul of Tyresia the prophetesse, notwithstanding the drawn sword, even before she tasted the bloud, knew Ulysses, and spake to him, and shewed him the ghost of his mother standing near to him. Whatsoever vices therefore souls have committed in the bodies unexpiated in this life, they are constrained, carrying the habits of them along with them, to purge themselves of them in hell, and to undergo punishment for them; which the Poet explains in these verses;

-- When they die, Then


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   When they die, Then doth not leave them all their misery. They having not repented of their crimes, Must now he punish'd for their mispent times.

For as the manners and habits of men are in this life, such affections for the most part follow the soul after death, which then calls to mind those things which it did formerly do in its life, and then intently thinks on them, for as much as then the divers offices of life cease, as those of nourishing, growing, generating, and various occupations of senses, and humane affairs, and comforts, and obstacles of a grosser body. Then are represented to the plantastick reason those species, which are so much the more turbulent and furious, by how much in such souls there lies hid an intellectuall spark more or lesse covered, or altogether extinct, into which are then by evil spirits conveyed species either most false, or terrible: whence now it is tormented in the concupiscile faculty, by the concupiscence of an imaginary good, or of those things which it did formerly affect in its life time, being deprived of the power of enjoying them, although it may seem to it self sometimes almost to obtain its delights, but to be driven from them by the evil spirits into bitter torments, as in the Poets, Tantalus from a banquet, Sardanapalus from embraces, Midas from gold, Sisyphus from power; and they called these souls hobgoblins, whereof if any taking care of houshold affairs lives and inhabits quietly in the house, it is called a houshold god, or familiar. But they are most cruelly tortured in the irascible faculty with the hatred of an imaginary evil, into the perturbations whereof, as also false suspitions, and most horrible Phantasmes they then fall, and there are represented to them sad representations; sometimes of the heaven falling upon their head, sometimes of being consumed by the violence of flames, sometimes of being drowned in a gulfe, sometimes of being swallowed up into the earth, sometimes of being changed into divers kinds of beasts, sometimes of being torn and devoured by ugly monsters, sometimes of being


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 being carried abroad, through woods, seas, fire, air, and through fearfull infernall places, and sometimes of being taken, and tormented by devils. All which we conceive happens to them after death no otherwise then in this life to those who are taken with a phrensie, and some other melancholy distemper, or to those who are affrighted with horrible things seen in dreams, and are thereby tormented, as if those things did really happen to them, which truely are not reall, but only species of them apprehended in imagination: even so do horrible representations of sins terrifie those souls after death as if they were in a dream, and the guilt of wickedness drives them headlong through divers places; which therefore Orpheus calls the people of dreams, saying, the gates of Pluto cannot be unlocked; within is a people of dreams; such wicked souls therefore enjoying no good places, when wandring in an Aeriall body, they represent any form to our sight, are called hags, and goblins, inoffensive to them that are good, but hurtfull to the wicked, appearing one while in thinner bodies, another time in grosser, in the shape of divers animals, and monsters, whose conditions they had in their life time, as sings the Poet,

Then divers forms, and shapes of brutes appear; For he becomes a tyger, swine, and bear, A skalie dragon, and a lionesse, Or doth from fire a dreadfull noise expresse; He doth transmute himself to divers looks, To fire, wild beasts, and into running brooks.

For the impure soul of a man, who in this life contracted too great a habit to its body, doth by a certain inward affection of the elementall body frame another body to it self of the vapours of the elements, refreshing as it were from an easie matter as it were with a suck, that body which is continually vanishing; to which being moreover enslaved as to a prison, and sensible instrument by a certain divine Law, doth in it suffer cold, and heat, and whatsoever annoys the body, spirit, and sense, as stinks,


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 howlings, wailings, gnashing of the teeth, stripes, tearings, and bonds, as Virgil sang;

- And therefore for their crimes They must be punish'd, and for mispent times Must tortures feel; some in the winds are hung, Others to cleanse their spotted sins are flung Into vast gulfes, or purg'd in fire -

And in Homer in his Necromancy Alcinous makes this relation to Ulysses,

Of Tytius the dear darling of the earth, We saw the body stretch'd nine furlongs forth And on each side of whom a vultur great Gnawing his bowel -

These souls sometimes do inhabit not these kinds of bodies only, but by a too great affection of flesh and blood transmute themselves into other animals, and seize upon the bodies of creeping things, and brutes, entering into them, what kind soever they be of, possessing them like Demons. Pythagoras is of the same opinion, and before him Trismegistus, asserting that wicked souls do oftentimes go into creeping things, and into brutes, neither do they as essentiall forms vivifie and inform those bodies, but as an inmate dwell there as in a prison, or stand neer them by a locall indistance as an internall mover to the thing moved; or being tyed to them are tormented, as Ixion to the wheel of serpents, Sysiphus to a stone; neither do they enter into brutes only, but sometimes into men, as we have spoken concerning the soul of Nabaoth which went forth a lying spirit in the mouth of the Prophets. Hence some have asserted that the lives, or spirits of wicked men going into the bodies of some men, have disturbed them, and sometimes slew them. Which is more fortunately granted unto blessed souls that like good Angels they should dwell in us, and enlighten us, as we read of Elias, that he being taken


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 from men his spirit fell upon Elisha: and elsewhere we read that God took of the spirit which was in Moses, and gave it to 70. men. Here lies a great secret, and not rashly to be revealed. Sometimes also (which yet is very rare) souls are driven with such a madness that they do enter the bodies not only of the living, but also by a certain hellish power wander into dead Carkasses, and being as it were revived commit horrid wickednesses, as we read in Saxo Grammaticus, that Asuitas and Asmundus, two certain men vowed one to the other, that he that should live longest should be buried with him that was first dead: at length Asuitus being first dead, is buried in a great vault with his dog, and horse, with whom also Asmundus by reason of his oath of friendship, suffered himself to be buried alive, (meat which he should for a long time eat, being brought to him); in processe of time Ericus King of Suecia, passing by that place with an army, breaking up the tomb of Asuitus (supposing that there was treasure) the vault being opened, brought forth Asmundus: whom, when he saw having a hideous look, being smeared over with filthy corrupt blood which flowed from a green wound (for Asuitus being revived, in the nights, took off with often struggling his right ear), he commanded him to tell him the cause of that wound: which he declares in these verses;

Why doth my visage wan you thus amaze? Since he that lives amongst the dead, the grace Of beauty needs must lose; I know not yet What daring Stygian feind of Asuit The spirit sent from hell, who there did eat A horse, and dog, and being with this meat Not as yet suffic'd, then set his claws on me, Pull'd off my cheek, mine ear, and hence you see My ugly, wounded, mangled, bloody face; This monstrous Wight returned not to his place Without receiv'd revenge; I presently His head cut off, and with a stake did I   His body thorough run -

Pausanias tels a story


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 not unlike to this, taken out of the interpreters of the Delphi; viz. that there was a certain infernall Demon, which they called Eurinomus, who would eat the flesh of dead men, and devour it so that the bones would scarce be left. We read also in the Chronicles of the Cretensians, that the ghosts which they call Catechanæ were wont to return back into their bodies, and go to their wives, and lie with them; for the avoyding of which, and that they might annoy their wives no more, it was provided in the common lawes that the heart of them that did arise should be thrust thorow with a nail, and their whole carcasse be burnt. These without doubt are wonderfull things, and scarce credible, but that those lawes, and ancient Histories make them credible. Neither is it altogether strange in Christian Religion that many souls were restored to their bodies, before the universall resurrection. Moreover we beleeve that many by the singular favour of God are together with their bodies received to glory, and that many went down alive to hell. And we have heard that oftentimes the bodies of the dead were by the devils taken from the graves, without doubt for no other use then to be imprisoned, and tomented in their hands. And to these prisons and bonds of their bodies there are added also the possessions of most filthy and abominable places, where are Aetnean fires, gulfes of water, the shakings of thunder, and lightening, gapings of the Earth, and where the region is void of light, and receives not the rayes of the Sun, and knows not the light of the Stars, but is alwayes dark. Whither Ulysses is reported in Homer to come, when he sings,

Here people are that be Cymmerian nam'd,   Drown'd in perpetuall darkness, it is fam'd,    Whom rising, nor the setwthng Sun doth see, But with perpetuall night oppressed be.

Neither are those mere fables which many have recorded of the cave of Patricius, of the den of Vulcan of the Aetnean caves, and of the den of Nursia, many that have seen and known


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 them testifying the same. Also Saxo Grammaticus tells of greater things then these of the Pallace of Geruthus, and of the cave of Ugarthilocus: Also Pliny, Solinus, Pythias, Clearchus, of the wonderfull prodigies of the Northern sea, of which Tacitus also in his history of Drusus shewes that in the German sea there wandred souldiers by whom divers miraculous unheard of things were seen, viz. the force of whirlpools, unheard of kinds of birds, sea monsters like men and beasts; and in his book of Germany he tells that the Heldusians, and Axions, who had the face of men, but their other parts were equall to beasts, did dwell there. Which without all doubt were the works of ghosts and divels. Of these also Claudianus long time since sang,

In th' extream bounds of France there is a place, Encompass'd by the sea, where in his race Fame saith Ulysses having tasted blood, A secret people did descry, where loud And mournfull plaints were heard of wandring spirits Which did the country people much affright.

Aristotle relates of the Aeolian Ilands neer Italy, that in Lipara was a certain tombe, to which no man could go safe by night, and that there were Cymbals and shrill voyces with certain absurd loud laughter; also tumults and empty sounds made, as the inhabitants did strongly aver; and that upon a time a certain yong man being drunk went thither, and about night fell asleep neer the cave of the tombe, and was after the third day found by them that sought him, and was taken up for dead; who being brought forth, the solemnities of the funerall being ready, suddainly arose up, and told in order, to the great admiration of all, many things which he had seen and suffered. There is also in Norvegia a certain mountain most dreadfull to all, cirrounded by the sea, which commonly is called Hethelbergius, representing Hell, whence there are heard great bewailings, howlings, and scritchings a mile round about, and over which great


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 vulters and most black Crows fly, making most horrible noyses, which forbid any to come neer it: Moreover from hence flow two fountaines whereof the one is most intense cold, the other most intense hot, far exceeding all other elements. There is also in the same country toward the Southern corner thereof a Promontory called Nadhegrin, where the Demons of the place are seen by all, in an aeriall body. There is also in Scotland the Mountain Dolorosus, from whence are heard dreadfull lamentations: and in Thuringia there is a mountain called Horrisonus, where dwelt Sylvani, and Satyrs, as fame and experience teacheth, and faithfull writers testifie. There are in divers Countries and Provinces such like miracles as these.


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 I will not relate here those things which I have seen with mine eyes, and felt with mine hands, least by the wonderfull admirablenes and strangeness of them I should by the incredulous be accounted a lyar. Neither do I think it fit to pass by what many of our age think concerning the receptacles of souls, not much differing from these which we have now spoken of: of which Tertullian in his fourth book against the heresies of Marcion saith, it is apparent to every wise man, which hath ever heard of the Elysian fields that there is some locall determination, (which is called Abrahams bosome) for the receiving of the souls of his sons, and that that region is not celestial, yet higher then hell, where the souls of the just rest, untill the consummation of things restore the resurrection of all things with fulnes of reward. Also Peter the Apostle saith to Clemens a king him of these things, thou dost constrain mee O Clemens to publish something conceming things unutterable: Yet as far as I may, I will. Christ, who from the beginning, & alwaies was, was alwaies through each generation, though secretly, present with the godly, with those especially by whom he was desired, and to whom he did most often appear. But it was not time, that the bodies then being resolved, there should be a resurrection: but this rather seemed a remuneration from God, that he that was found just, should remain longer in a body: or that the Lord should translate him (as we see clearly related in the Scripture of some certain iust men). After the like example God dealt with others, who pleased him well, and fullfilling his will were being translated to Paradise reserved for a kingdome. But of those who could not fullfill the rule of justice, but had some relique of wickedness in their flesh, the bodyes indeed are resolved, but souls are kept in good and pleasant regions, that in the resurrection of the dead, when they shall receive their bodies, being now purged by resolution, they may enjoy an eternall inheritance for those things which they have done well. Ireneus also in the end of his book which he wrot against the Heresies of the Valentinians, saith: Whereas the Lord went in the middle of the shadow of death, where the souls of the dead were, and after rose again corporeally, and after resurrection was taken up, it is manifest that the souls of his disciples (for whom he worked these things) should go to some invisible place, appoynted by God, and there tarry untill the resurrection, afterwards receiving their bodyes, and rising again perfectly, i.e. corporeally, as the Lord arose, so shall they come into the presence of God; for no disciple is above his Master; But every one shall be perfect as his Master. Therefore even as our Master did not presently fly and go away, but expected the time of his resurrection determined by the father, which is also manifested by Jonas, after three daies arising he is taken up; So also ought we to expect the time or our resurrection determined by God, foretold by the Prophets; and so rising again we shall be taken up, as many as the Lord shall account worthy of this honour; Lactantius Firmianus also agreeth to this, in that book of Divine institutions, whose title is of Divine reward; Saying, let no man think, that the souls after death are presently judged; for they are all detained in one common custody, untill the time cometh in which the great Judge shall examine deserts; then they whose righteousness shall be approved, shall receive the reward of immortality: but they whose sins and wickednes are detected, shall not rise again, but being destinated for certain punishment, shal be shut up with the wicked angels into the same darknes; of the same opinion are Austine, and Ambrose, who sayth in his Enchiridion, The time which is interposed betwixt


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 the death of man and the last resurrection, containeth the soul in secret receptacles: as everyone is worthy of rest or sorrow, according to that which it obtained whilst it lived in the flesh; but Ambrose in his book concerning the benefits of death, saith; The writing of Esdras calleth the habitations of the souls, store houses; which be meting with the complaints of man (because that the Just who have gone before, may seem, even to the day of Judgement viz. for a long time, to be wonderfully defrauded of their just recompense of reward) doth liken the day of judgement to a garland; for the day of reward is expected of all, that in the mean time both the conquered may be ashamed, and the conquerors may attain the palme of victory; therefore while the fulnes of time is expected, the souls expect their due recompense; punishment remaining for some, glory for others; and in the same place he calleth Hell a place which is not seen, which the souls go to being separated from the bodies; And in his second book of Cain and Abel, he saith, the soul is loosed from the body, and after the end of this life, is even as yet in suspence, being doubtfull of the judgement to come; To these assenteth that evangelical saying, concerning the last judgement, Christ saying in Matthew: Many shall say to mee in that day, Lord, lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out Devils? And then I shall confess to them, that I never knew them; by which speech it seemeth to be clear, that even untill this day they were uncertain concerning their sentence, and by the confidence of miracles which they had performed in the name of Jesus, whilst they lived, to have bin in some hope of salvation; Therefore because the judgement of souls is deferred untill the last day, many Theologians think that satisfactory intercessions may help not only the Justified, but also the damned, before the appoynted day of iudgment. So Trajan the Emperor was delivered from Hell by Saint Gregory, and Justified to salvation, though some think that he was not freed from the guilt of punishment, but the Justice of punishment was prorogued untill the day of iudgment; But Thomas Aquinas saith it seemeth more


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 probable, that by the intercessions of S. Gregory, Trajan lived again, and obtained a gracious power by the which he was freed from the punishment and guilt of sin; and there are some Theologians who think, that by the Dirges for the dead neither the punishment nor the guilt is taken away or detracted, but that only some ease and asswagement of the pains is procured; and this by the similitude of a sweating porter, who by the sprinkling of some water seemeth to be eased of the weight of his burthen, or helped to carry it more easily, although nothing of the burthen be taken off: Yet the common opinion of Theologians denyeth that prayers or funerall Diriges do cause any favour for the guilty within the gates of Pluto: but seeing all these things are of an incomprehensible obscurity, many have vainly whet their wits on them: Therefore we holding to the opinion of Austine, as he saith in the tenth book on Genesis, do affirm, That it is better to doubt concerning occult things, then to contend about uncertain things; for


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 I doubt not but that that rich man is to be understood in the flames of pains, and that poor man in the refreshment of joyes; but how that flame of hell, that bosom of Abraham, that tongue of the rich man, that torment of thirst, that drop of cooling, are to be understood, it is hardly found out by the modest searcher, but by the contentious never; but these things being for this present omitted, we hasten to further matters and will dispute concerning the restitution of souls.

Chapter xlii. By what wayes the Magicians and Necromancers do think they can call forth the souls of the dead. By the things which have been already spoken, it is manifest that souls after death do as yet love their body which they left, as those souls do whose bodies want a due buriall: or have left their bodies by violent death, and as yet wander about their carkasses in a troubled and moist spirit, being as it were allured by something that hath an affinity with them; the means being known by the which in times past they were joyned to their bodi, they may easily be called forth & allured by the like vapours, liquors and savours, certain artificiall lights being also used, songs, sounds and such like, which do move the imaginative and spirituall Harmony of the soul; also sacred invocations, and such like, which belong to Religion, ought not to be neglected, by reason of the portion of the rationall soul, which is above nature: So the witch is said to have called up Samuel, and the Thessalian prophetesse in Lucan, to have caused a carcasse to stand upright: Hence we read in Poets, and those who relate these things, that the souls of the dead cannot be called up without blood and a carkasse: but their shadowes to be easily allured by the fumigations of these things; eggs being also used, and milk, honey, oil, wine, water, flowre, as it were yeelding a fit medicine for the souls to reassume their bodies, as you may see in Homer, where Circe at large instructeth Ulysses; yet they think, that these things can be done in those places only where these kinds of souls are known to be most conversant, either by reason of some affinity, as their dead body alluring them, or by reason of some affection imprinted in their life, drawing the soul itself to certain places, or by reason of some hellish nature of the place; and therefore fit for the punishing or purging of souls: places of this kind are best known by the meeting of nocturnall visions and incursions, and such like Phantasmes; Some are sufficiently known by themselves, as buriall places and places of execution, and where publike slaughters have lately been made, or where the carkasses of the slain, not as yet expiated, nor rightly buried, were some few yeers since put into the ground; for expiation and exorcisation of any place, and also the holy right of buriall being duely perfomeed to the bodies, oftentimes prohibiteth the souls themselves to come up, and driveth them farther off the places of judgement; Hence Necromancy hath its name, because it worketh on the bodies of the dead, and giveth answers by the ghosts and apparitions of the dead, and subterrany  spirits, alluring


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 them into the carkasses of the dead, by certain hellish charms, and infernall invocations, and by deadly sacrifices, and wicked oblations; such we read in Lucan of Erichthone the witch, who called up the dead, who foretold to Sextus Pompey all the events of the Pharsalian War: There were also in Phigalia a city of Arcadia, certain magicians, priests most skilful in sacred rites, & raisers up of the souls of the dead: and the holy scriptures testifie, that a certain woman, a witch called up Samuels soul: even so truely the souls of the saints do love their bodies, and hear more readily there, where the pledges of their reliques are preserved: but there are two kinds of Necromancy, the one called Necromancy, raising the carkasses, which is not done without blood. The other Sciomancy, in which the calling up of the shadow only sufficeth: to conclude, it worketh all its experiments by the carkases of the slain, and their bones and members, and what is from them, because there is in these things a spirituall power friendly to them. Therefore they easily allure the flowing down of wicked spirits, being by reason of the similitude and propriety very familiar: by whom the Necromancer strengthened by their help can do very much in humane and terrestriall things, and kindle unlawfull lusts, cause dreams, diseases, hatred and such like passions, to the which also they can confer the powers of these souls, which as yet being involved in a moist and turbid spirit, and wandering about their cast bodies, can do the same things that the wicked spirits commit; seeing therefore they experimentally find, that the wicked and impure souls violently plucked from their bodies, and of men not expiated, and wanting buriall, do stay about their carcases, and are drawn to them by affinity, the witches easily abuse them for the effecting of their witchcrafts, alluring these unhappy souls by the apposition of their body or by the taking of some part thereof, and compelling them by their devillish charmes, by entreating them by the deformed carkases dispersed through the wide fields, and the wandering shadowes of those that want burials, and by the ghosts sent back from Acheron, and the guests of hell, whom untimely


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 death hath precipitated into Hell; and by the horrible desires of the damned, and proud devils revengers of wickedeesses. But he which would restore the souls truely to their bodies, must first know what is the proper nature of the soul from whence it went forth, with how many and how great degrees of perfection it is replenished, with what intelligence it is strengthened, by what means diffused into the body, by what harmony it shall be compacted with it; what affinity it hath with God, with the intelligences, with the heavens, elements, and all other things whose image and resemblance it holdeth. To conclude, by what influences the body may be knit together again for the raising of the dead, requireth all these things which belong not to men but to God only, and to whom he will communicate them, as to Elishai who raised up the son of the Shunamite; so also Alcestis is reported to have been raised by Hercules, and to have lived long after; and Apollonius Tyanensis restored a dead maid to life. And here is to be noted that sometimes it happeneth to men, that their vivifying spirit is retracted in them, and they appear as dead and without sense, when as yet the intellectuall nature remaineth united to the body, and it hath the same form, and remaineth the same body, although the power of vivifying extendeth not it self into it actually, but remaineth retracted in the union with the intellectual nature; yet it ceaseth not to be; and although that man may truly be said to be dead, inasmuch as death is a want of a vivifying spirit, yet is it not truly separated; and that body can be wakened again and live; and thus many miracles appear in these; and of this kind many have been seen amongst the Gentiles and Jewes in former ages, in the number of which is that which Plato reciteth in his tenth book de Republ., viz. that one Phereus of Pamphilia lay ten dayes amongst the slain in battle, and after that he had been taken away and laid to the fire two dayes, he revived and told many wonderfull things which he had seen in the time of his death; and concerning these things we have spoken partly in the first book, and shall yet speak further anon where we shall speak of Oracles, which come forth in a Rapture, Extasie, and in the Agony of dying men.

Chapter xliii. Of the power of mans soul, in the


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 mind, reason and imagination. Mans soul consisteth of a mind, reason and imagination; the mind illuminates reason, reason floweth into the imagination: All is one soul. Reason unless it be illuminated by the mind, is not free from errour: but the mind giveth not light to reason, unless God enlighten, viz. the first light; for the first light is in God very far exceeding all understanding: wherefore it cannot be called an intelligible light; but this when it is infused into the mind, is made intellectuall, and can be understood: then when it is infused by the mind to the reason, it is made rationall, and cannot only be understood but also considered: then when it is infused by the reason into the phantasie of the soul, it is made not only cogitable, but also imaginable; yet it is not as yet corporeall; but when from hence it goeth into the Celestiall vehicle of the soul; it is first made corporeall, yet not manifestly sensible till it hath passed into the elementall body, either simple and Aerial, or compound, in the which the light is made manifestly visible to the eye; The Chaldean Philosophers considering this progresse of light, declare a certain wonderfull power of our mind: viz. that it may come to passe, that our mind being firmly fixed on God, may be filled with the divine power; and being so replenished with light, its beams being diffused through all the media, even to this grosse, dark, heavy, mortall body, it may endow it with abundance of light, and make it like the Stars, and equally shining, and also by the plenty of its beams and lightness lift it on high, as straw lifted up by the flame of fire, and can presently carry the body as a spirit into remote parts. So we read of Philip in the Acts of the Apostles, who baptizing the Eunuch in India, was presently found, in Azotus. The like we read of Habacuc in Daniel: so others going through the doors being shut, escaped both their  keepers and imprisonment;


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 as we read of Peter the Apostle and of Peter the Exorcist: He may the less wonder at this, who hath seen those famous melancholick men, who walk in their sleepes and passe through places even unpassible, and ascend even unaccessible places, and exercise the works of those that are awake, which they themselves being awake could not do; of the which things there is no other reason in nature, then a strong and exalted imagination: but this power is in every man, & it is in the soul of man from the root of his Creation; but it is varied in diverse men, in strength and weakness, and is encreased and diminished according to his exercise and use, by the which it is drawn forth from power into act, which thing he that rightly knoweth, can ascend by his knowledge, even untill his imaginative faculty doth transcend and is joyned with the universall power, which Alchindus, Bacon, and Gulielmus Parisiensis do call the sense of nature; Virgil the Etheriall sense, and Plato the sense of the vehicle: and his imagination is made most strong, when that etherial and Celestiall power is poured out upon it, by whose brightness it is comforted, untill it apprehend the species, notions and knowledge of true things, so that that which he thought in his mind, cometh to passe even as he thought, and it obtaineth so great power, that it can plunge, joyn and insinuate it self into the minds of men, and make them certain of his thoughts, and of his will and desire, even thorow large and remote spaces, as if they perceived a present object by their senses; and it can in little time do many things, as if they were done without time; yet these things are not granted to all, but to those whose imaginative and cogitative power is most strong and hath arrived to the end of speculation; and he is fitted to apprehend and manifest all things, by the splendour of the universall power, or intelligence and spirituall apprehension which is above him: and this is that necessary power, which everyone ought to follow and obey, who followeth the truth; if therefore now the power of the imagination is so great, that it can ininuate itself unto whom it pleaseth, being neither hindered nor let by any distance of


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 time or place, and can sometimes draw its heavy body along with it, whither it imagineth and dreameth: There is no doubt but that the power of the mind is greater, if at any time it shall obtain its proper nature, and being no way oppressed by the allurements of the senses, shall persevere both uncorrupted and like it self; but now for example, that the souls abound with so plentifull Light of the Celestiall Stars, and hence, a very great abundance of light redoundeth into their bodies; so Moses face did shine, that the children of Israel could not behold him by reason of the brightness of his countenance; thus Socrates was transfigured, as we read, that in light he overcame the luciferous wheels of the Sun; So Zoroastes being transfigured, his body was taken up. So Eliah and Enoch ascended to heaven in a certain fiery chariot, so Paul was rapt up into the third heaven: So our bodies after the judgement of the world, shall be called Glorified, and in like manner be rapt up, and we may say by this means, shall shine as the Sun and Moon; which thing that it is possible, and hath formerly been done, Avicebron the Moore, and Avicen the Arabian and Hippocrates of Cous, and all the school of the Chaldeans do acknowledge and confirm: Moreover it is reported in Histories, that Alexander the great being circumvented and in great danger in India, did so burn in mind, that he seemed to the Barbarians to cast forth light; the father of Theodoricus also is reported to have cast forth sparks of fire tilmugh his whole body; the same thing a wise man also delivered concerning himself, so that sparkling flames did break forth here and there even with a noise; neither is this power of the soul found in men only, but sometimes even in beasts, as in the horse of Tiberius, who seemed to send forth flames out of his mouth. But the mind is above fate in providence, therefore is not affected either with the influences of the heavenly bodies, or the qualities of naturall things; Religion therefore can only cure it; but the sensitiveness of the soul is in fate, above nature, which is in a certain manner the knot of the body and soul, and under fate, above the body; therefore it is changed by the influences of


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 the heavenly bodies, and affected by the qualities of naturall and corporeall things: now I call the sensitiveness of the soul, that vivifying and rectifying power of the body, the originall of the senses; the soul it self doth manifest in this body its sensitive powers and perceiveth corporeall things by the body, and locally moveth the body, and governeth it in his place, and nourisheth it in a body. In this sensitiveness two most principal powers predominate; viz. one which is called the Phantasy, or imaginative or cogitative faculty, of whose power we have already spoken, where we have handled the passions of the soul: the other which is called the sense of nature, of the which also we have spoken, where we made mention of witchcraft. Man therefore by the nature of his body is under fate; the soul of man, by the sensitiveness moveth nature in Fate; but by the mind is above fate, in the order of providence; yet reason is free at its own choice; therefore the soul by reason ascendeth into the mind, where it is replenished with divine light; sometimes it descendeth into sensitiveness and is affected by the influences of the heavenly bodies, and qualities of naturall things, and is distracted by the passions and the encountring of sensible objects: sometimes the soul revolveth it selfe wholly into reason, searching out other things either by discourse, or by contemplating it self: for it is possible, that that part of the reason, which the Peripateticks call the possible Intellect, may be brought to this, that it may freely discourse and operate without conversion to his Phantasmes: for so great is the command of this reason, that as often as any thing incurreth either into the mind, or into the sensitiveness, or into nature, or into the body, it cannot passe into the soul, unless reason apply it self to it; by this means the soul perceiveth it self neither to see, nor hear, nor feel, nor that it suffereth any things by the externall senses, untill cogitative reason first apprehend it; but it appiehendeth it when it is at leisure, not when it earnestly gapeth after another thing, as we manifestly see by these who heed not those that they meet, when they more seriously think on something else. Know therefore that neither the superiour influences, nor naturall affections,


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 nor sensations, nor passions either of the mind or body, nor any sensible thing whatsoever, can work or penetrate into the soul unless by the Judgement of reason it self. Therefore by its act, not by any extrinsecall violence, can the soul be either affected or disturbed, which thing even innumerable Martyrs have proved by their Martyrdom: So Anasarchus a Philosopher of Abdera, who, by the command of Nicocreontes a tyrant of Cyprus, being cast into a concave stone neglecting the pains of his body, while he was pounded with iron pestils, is reported to have said: pound, pound the shell of Anasarchus, thou nothing hurteth Anasarchus himself: The tyrant commanded his tongue to be cut off, but he with his own teeth did bite it off, and did spit it in the face of the Tyrant.

Chapter xliv. Of the degrees of souls, and their destruction, or Immortality. The minde, because it is from God, or from the intelligible world, is therefore immortal and eternal; but reason is long-lived by the benefit of its celestial original from the Heaven; but the sensitive because it is from the bosome of the matter and dependeth on sublunary nature, is subject to destruction and corruption: therefore the soul by its minde is immortall, by its Reason long-lived in its etherial vehicle, but resolvable unless it be restored in the circuit of its new body; therefore it is not immortal, unless it be united to an immortal mind: therefore the sensitiveness of the soul or the sensitive or animal soul, because it is produced out of the bosome of a corporeal matter, the body being resolved, perisheth together with it, or the shadow thereof remaineth not long in the vapours of its resolved body, partaking nothing of immortality, unless it be also united to a more sublimed power; therefore the soul which is united to the minde, is called the Soul standing not falling; but all men obtain not this minde, because (


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 as Hermes saith) God would propound it as it were a prize and reward of the souls, which they that shall neglect, being without minde, spotted with corporeall senses, and made like to irrational creatures, are allotted to the same destruction with them, as Ecclesiastes saith: there is the same destruction of man and beasts, and the condition of both is equall; as man dieth, so also they dye, yea they have all one breath, so that man hath no preheminence over a beast; thus far he. Hence many Theologians think, that the souls of men of this kinde have no immortality after they have left their body, but an hope of the resurrection only, when all men shall be restored. Austin relateth that this was the heresie of the Arabians, who affirmed that the souls perished together with their bodies; and in the day of judgement did arise again with them; whosoever therefore being upheld by the divine grace have obtained a mind, these according to the proportion of their works become immortal (as Hermes saith) having comprehended all things by their understanding, which are in the earth, and in the sea, and in the Heavens, and if there be any thing besides these above heaven, so that they behold even goodness it self: but they who have lived a middle life, though they have not obtained the divine intelligence, but a certain rationall intelligence of it; these mens souls, when they shall depart from their bodies, are bound over to certain secret receptacles, where they are affected with sensifive powers, and are exercised in a certain kind of act; and by imagination, and the irascible & concupiscible vertues, do either extreamly rejoyce, or greivously lament. Of which opinion Saint Austin also was, in his book which he wrote of the spirit and soul; The wise men of the Indians, Persians, AEgyptians & Chaldeans have delivered, that this soul superviveth much longer then its body, yet that it is not made altogether immortal, unless by Transmigration. But our Theologians do philosophize far otherwise concerning these things, that although there be the same common originall and beginning of all souls, yet they are distinguished by the creator with divers degrees, not only accidentall, but also intrinsecall, founded in their very essence, by


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 the which one soul differeth from another, by that which is proper to it self; which opinion John Scotus also holdeth, and the Parisian Theologians have so decreed in their articles; Hence the wise man saith, I was an ingenuous child, and obtaihed a good soul, viz. a better then many others; and according to this inequality of souls, every one is capable in their degree, of their charge; which gift is freely given by God, as we read in the Gospel, that he gave to one five Talents, to another two, to another one, to every one according to his vertue; and the Apostle saith, he hath given some to be Apostles, some Prophets, some Evangelists and Doctors, for the consummation of the Saints in the work of the Ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ; for there are (saith Origen) certain invisible perfections, to the which are committed those things which are dispensed here upon earth, in which there is no small difference, as also is required in the men; wherefore some one attaineth the highest degree of wisdome and dignity; another little differeth from beasts, & feeding beasts is made half a beast; another aboundeth in vertues and in wealth; another hath even little or nothing, & oftentimes that little which he hath is taken away from him, & given to him that hath; and this is the divine justice in the distribution of gifts, that they may correspond to the vertues of every receiver, to whom also rewards are given according to their works: that what proportion there is, of gifts to gifts, and of deserts to deserts, there may be the same proportion of rewards to rewards; to conclude, we must know this, that every noble soul hath a fourfold operation; First divine, by the Image of the divine propriety; the second intellectual, by formality of Participation with the intelligences; the third rational, by the perfection of its proper essential essence; the fourth animal or natural, by communion with the body and these Inferior things; So that there is no work in this whole world so admirable, so excellent, so wonderfull, which the soul of man, being associated to his Image of divinity, which the Magitians call a soul, standing and not falling, cannot accomplish by its own power without any externall help: Therefore the form


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 of all Magical power is from the soul of man standing and not falling.

Chapter xlv. Of Soothsaying, and Phrensie. Soothsaying is that which the priests or others were stricken withall, and discerned the causes of things, and foresaw future things, viz. when Oracles and Spirits descend from the Gods or from Demons upon them, and are delivered by them; which descendings the Platonists call the falling down of superior souls on our souls; and Mercurius calls them the senses of the Demons, and the spirits of Demons. Of which sort of Demons the Ancients called Eurideae, and Pythonae, who, as the Ancients believed, were wont to enter into the bodies of men, and make use of the voyces, and tongues, for the prediction of things to come; of which Plutarch also made mention in his dialogue of the causes of defect of Oracles. But Cicero following the Stoicks, affirms that the foreknowing of future things belongs only to the Gods; and Ptolomie the Astrologer saith, that they only that are inspired with a diety foretell particular things. To these Peter the Apostle consents, saying, Prophesying is not made according to the will of man, but holy men spake as they were moved by the holy ghost. Now that the foretellings of things to come are properly the fallings down of the Gods. Isaiah affirms, saying, And tell unto us those things that are coming, and we will tell them, because ye are Gods; But these kinds of fallings down, or senses, come not into our souls when they are more attently busied ahout any thing else; but they pass into them, when they are vacant. Now there are three kinds of this vacancy, viz. phrensie, extasie, and dreams, of each of which in their order.

Chapter xlvi. Of the first kind of phrensie from the Muses. Phrensie


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 is an illustration of the soul coming from the Gods, or Demons. Whence this verse of Ovid,

"God is in us, Commerces of the throne of God, that spirit from above came down."

Plato defines this by alienation, and binding; for he abstracts from those by which the corporeal senses are stirred up, and being estranged from an animal man, adheres to a diety from whom it receives those things which it cannot search into by its own power; for when the minde is free, and at liberty, the reines of the body being loosed, and going forth as out of a close prison, transcends the bonds of the members, and nothing hindring of it, being stirred up by its own instigations, and instigated by a divine spirit, comprehends all things, and foretells future things. Now there are four kinds of divine phrensie proceeding from several dieties, viz. from the Muses, from Dionysius, from Apollo, and from Venus. The first phrensie therefore proceeding from the Muses, stirs up and tempers the mind, and makes it divine by drawing superior things to inferior things by things natural. Now Muses are the souls of the celestial spheres, according to which there are found several degrees, by which there is an attraction of superior things to inferior. The inferior of these resembling the sphear of the Moon, possesseth those things which are from vegetables, as plants, fruits of trees, roots, and those which are from harder matters, as Stones, Metals, their alligations, and suspensions. So it is said that the stone Selenites i.e. Moon-Stone, and the stone of the Civet-cat cause divination; also Vervain, and the Hearb Theangelis cause soothsaying, as hath been ahove said. The second degree resembling Mercury, possesseth those things which are from animals, and which are compounded of the mixtion


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 of divers natural things together, as Cups, and Meats; upon this account the heart of a Mole, if anyone shall eat it whilest it is warm, and panting, conduceth, as it is said, to the foretelling of future events. And Rabbi Moses in his commentaries upon Leviticus tells, that there is an animal called Jedua, having a humane shape, in the midle of whose navel comes forth a string, by which it is fastened to the ground like a gourd, and as far as the length of that string reacheth, it devours and consumes all that is green about it, and deceiving the sight, cannot be taken, unless that string he cut off by the stroke of a dart, which being cut off, it presently dies. Now the bones of this animal being after a certain manner laid upon the mouth, presently he whose mouth they are laid on, is taken with a phrensie, and soothsaying. The third degree answers to the sphear of Venus; This possesseth subtile powders, vapours, and odours, and oyntments, and suffumigations, which are made of these of which we have spoke above. The fourth degree belongs to the sphear of the Sun; this possesseth voyces, words, singings, and harmonical sounds, by the sweet consonancy whereof it drives forth of the minde any troublesomeness therein, and chears it up. Whence Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, advise us to compose a discontented minde, and chear it up by singing and harmony. So Timotheus is said to have with sounds stirred up King Alexander to a phrensie: so the Priest Calame (Aurelius Augustus being witness) was wont at his pleasure by a certain shrill harmony to call himself forth out of his body into a rapture, and extasie; of these also we have before spoken. The fifth degree is answerable to Mars: this possesseth vehement imaginations, and affections of the minde, conceits also, and motions thereof, of all which before. The sixth degree answers to Jupiter: this possesseth the discourses of reason, deliberations, consultations, and moral purgations: of these we have spoken in part above, and further we shall speak afterwards; It possesseth also admirations, and venerations, at the astonishment of which, the phantasie, and reason are sometimes so restrained, that they suddenly let pass all their


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 own actions: whence then the minde it self being free, and exposed to a diety only, whether to any God, or Demon, doth receive supernal, and divine influences, viz. those concerning which it did deliberate before. So we read that the Sybils, and the Priests of Pythia were wont to receive oracles in the caves of Jupiter, and Apollo. The seventh degree resembles Saturn: this possesseth the more secret intelligencies, and quiet contemplations of the minde. I call here, the contemplation, the free perspicacity of the minde, suspended with admiration upon the beholding of wisdom. For that excogitation which is made by riddles, and images, is a certain kind of speculation, or discourse belonging to Jupiter, and not a contemplation. The eighth degree resembles the starry heaven; this observes the situation, motion, raies, and light of the celestial bodies: it possesseth also images, rings, and such like, which are made after the rule of celestials, as we have abeve spoken. The ninth degree answers to the primum mobile, viz. the ninth sphear, as the very universe: this possesseth things more formal, as Numbers, Figures, Characters, and observes the occult influences of the intelligences of the heaven, and other mysteries, which because they bear the effigies of celestial dieties, and invocated spirits, easily allures them, and compelleth them being forced by a certain necessity of conformity to come to one, and detains them, that they shall not easily go back, of which we read in the Oracles in Porphyrie.

"Cease now at length, spare words, to life give rest, Dissolve, and leave old shapes (I thee request), Dishape the members, and the winding sheet Unloose -"

And in another place in the same book.

"Ye Garlands loose the feet, with water clean Let them be sprinkled, and the Laurel green Be taken off from th' hands, and every line And Character be blotted out -"

Of these


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 we have sufficiently treated already, and shall afterwards treat further of them.

Chapter xlvii. Of the second kinde from Dionysius. Now the second phrensie proceeds from Dionysius: this doth by expiations exterior, and interior, and by conjurations, by mysteries, by solemnities, rites, temples, and observations divert the soul into the mind, the supream part of it self, and makes it a fit and pure temple of the Gods, in which the divine spirits may dwell, which the soul then possessing as the associate of life, is filled by them with felicity, wisdom, and oracles, not in signs, and marks, or conjectures, but in a certain concitation of the mind, and free motion: So Bacchus did soothsay to the Beotians, and Epimenides to the people of Cous, and the Sybil Erithea to the Trojans. Sometimes this phrensie happens through a clear vision, sometimes by an express voyce: So Socrates was governed by his Demon, whose counsel he did diligently obey, whose voyce he did often hear with his ears, to whom also the shape of a Demon did often appear. Many prophesying spirits also were wont to shew themselves, and be associats with the souls of them that were purified; examples of which there are many in sacred Writ, as in Abraham, and his bond maid Hagar, in Jacob, Gideon, Elias, Tobias, Daniel, and many more. So Adam had familiarity with the Angel ''Raziel. Shem the son of Noah with Jophiel; Abraham with Zadkiel: Isaac and Jacob with Peliel; Joseph, Joshua and Daniel with Gabriel; Moses with Metattron; Elias with Malhiel; Tobias the younger with Raphael; David with Cerniel; Mannoah with Phadael; Cenez with Cerrel; Ezekiel with Hasmael; Esdras with Uriel; Solomon with Michael.'' Sometimes the spirits by vertue of the souls enter into, and seize upon organical bodies, whether of brutes or men, and using the souls thereof as the basis, utter voyces


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 through organical instruments, as is manifest in Baalams Ases, and in Saul, on whom the spirit of the Lord fell, and Prophecyed. Of these Apollo in his answers in Porphyry thus;

"Phebean fulgor charmed, did from on high Come down, and through pure air was silently Conveyed; came into souls well purified With a sonorous breath, a voyce uttered Through a mortal throat -"

Chapter xlviii. Of the third kind of phrensie from Apollo. Now the third kind of phrensie proceeds fom Apollo, viz. from the mind of the world. This doth by certain sacred mysteries, vows, sacrifices, adorations, invocations, & certain sacred arts, or certain secret confections, by which the spirits of their God did infuse vertue, make the soul rise above the mind, by joyning it with dieties, and Demons: so we read concerning the Ephod, which being applied, they did presently prophecie: so we read in the books of the Senats in the chapter of Eleazar, that Rabbi Israel made ceraain cakes, writ upon with certain divine and angelicall names, and so consecrated, which they that did eat with faith, hope, and charitie, did presently break forth with a spirit of prophecie. We read in the same place that Rabbi Johena the son of Jochahad, did after that manner enlighten a certain rude countryman, called Eleazar, being altogether illiterate, that being compassed about with a sudden brightness, did unexpectedly preach such high mysteries of the Law to an assembly of wise men, that he did even astonish all that were neer him. And it is reported of a certain man called Herviscus, an Aegyptian, that he was endowed with such a divine nature, that at the very sight of images that had any diety in them, he was forthwith stirred up


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 with a kind of divine phrensie. We read also in the scripture, that when Saul was amongst the Prophets, the spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he prophecied, and when he went forth from the assembly of the Prophets, he ceased to prophesie; the same happened to those officers which Saul sent to catch David: who when they saw the company of the Prophets, and Samuel standing in the midst of them, received the spirit of the Lord on them, and prophesied also. So great is the abounding of divine light oftentimes in the prophets, taken with a divine phrensie, that it also seiseth on them that are neer them, and makes them have the same spirit of phrensie: It is not therefore incredible, that an ignorant man should presently be made wise, and again that a wise man become ignorant: for there is a certain art (known but to few) of informing, adorning, & illustrating a pure mind, so that it should presently be recovered out of the darkness of ignorance, and brought to the light of wisdom: and on the contrary, there is a way by certain hid secrets, to make them that have unclean, and unbelieving minds to become ignorant again, although for the present they are learned and wise. Mans mind also, especially when it is simple, and pure, may (Apuleius being witness) by some sacred, and mysterious recreation, and appeasing, be so brought into a sleep, and astonied, that it may forget things present so utterly, as to be brought into its divine nature, and so be enlightned with the divine light, and inspired with a divine phrensie that it may foretell things to come, and withall receive the vertue of some wonderfull effects. Whence Iamblicus saith, when the prophets are inspired with a diety, they fear nothing, for they go through wayes unpassable, and are carried into the fire without any hurt, and passe over rivers. So we read of certain caves, as of Apollo, Trophonius, the three footed stools, dens, fountains, lakes, and such like, that were consecrated to the gods after this manner, or made by that mysterie, that from thence the priests might draw the spirit of prophecying, as Iamblicus in Porphyrie: The Sybill (saith he) in Delphi was wont to receive God after two wayes: either by a subtill spirit, and fire, which


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 did break forth somewhere out of the mouth of the cave, where she sitting in the entrance upon a brazen three footed stool dedicated to a diety, was divinely inspired, and did utter prophecyings; or a great fire flying out of the cave did cirround this prophetess, stirring her up, being filled with a diety, to prophesie, which inspiration also she received as she sate upon a consecrated seat, breaking forth prently into predictions. Moreover there was a prophetess in Branchi which sate upon an extree, and either held a wand in her hand, given to her by some diety, or washed her feet, and sometimes the hem of her garment in the waters, or drew the vapour of fire from the waters. By all these she was filled with divine splendour, and did unfold many Oracles. We also read that in the country of Thracia there was a certain passage consecrated to Bacchas, from whence predictions, and Oracles were wont to be given: the Priors of whose temples having drank wine abundantly did do strange things. Amongst the Clarians also, where the temple of Clarius Apollo was, to whom


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 it was given to utter divine things, they having drank much wine did strange things. There was also a propheticall fountain of Father Achaia, constituted before the temple of Ceres, where they that did enquire of the event of the sick did let down a glass by degrees tied to a small cord, to the top of the water, and certain supplications and fumes being made, the event of the thing did appear in the glass. There was also not far from Epidaurus a City of Laconia a deep Fen, which was called the water of Juno, into which cakes of corn being cast, answers were given, fortunate, if the waters did quietly retain what was cast in; but unhappy, if they did as it were, scorning of them, cast them back. The like they say do the caves of Aetna, into which money or sacrifices did shew the same presage of good or ill, by being retained, or rejected. The like things reports Dion in his Romane History, in a place which they call the Nymphs: where Frankincense being cast into the flames, Oracles were received concerning all those things which he did desire to know, especially concerning death, and those things which belonged to marriages. Wonderfull also is that which Aristotle relates of a certain fountain of the Paliscans of Sicilia, to which they that did take an oath did go, and whatsoever they did affirm upon oath writ it upon tables, which they cast into the fountain. If those things were true, the tables would swim; if false, sink; then fire coming suddenly forth burned him that was perjured into ashes. There was also in the City Dodona an Oak, which assoon as any one entered in to receive an answer, did forthwith move, and make a sound; there was also a statue holding a wand, which did strike a bason, whereby the bason made answer by moderated strokes. Whence it is read in the Epistle of Austinus to Paulinus,

"Answers did give the Dodonean brass, With moderated strokes; so docile t'was."

Chapter xlix. Of the fourth kinde of Phrensie, from Venus. Now the fourth kind of Phrensie proceeds from Venus, and it doth by a fervent love convert, and transmute the mind to God, and makes it altogether like to God, as it were the proper image of God; whence Hermes saith, O Asclepius! Man is a great miracle, an animal to be honoured and adored: for he passeth into the nature of God, whereby he becomes God: He knows the rise of Demons, and he knows himself to have his originall with them, despising the part of his humane nature in himself, having a sure confidence of the divinity of the other; The soul therefore being converted, and made like to God, is so formed of God, that it doth above all intellect, know all things by a certain essential contract of Divinity: therefore Orpheus describes love to be without eyes, because it is above the intellect. Now then the soul being so converted into God by love, and sublimated above the intellectuall spear, doth beside that it hath by its integrity obtain'd the spirit of prophecie, sometimes work


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 wonderfull things, and greater then the nature of the world can do, which works are called miracles. For as the heaven by its image, light, and heat, doth those things, which the force of the fire cannot do by its naturall quality (which in Alchymie is most known by experience) so also doth God by the image and light of himself do those things, which the world cannot do by its innate vertue. Now the image of God is man, at least such a man that by a phrensie from Venus is made like to God, and lives by the mind only, and receives God into himself. Yet the soul of man according to the Hebrew Doctors and Cabalists, is defined to be the light of God, and Created after the image of the word, the cause of causes, the first example, and the substance of God, figured by a seal whose Character is the eternall word. Which Mercurius Trismegistus considering, saith, that such a man is more excellent then they that are in heaven, or at least equall to them.

Chapter l. Of rapture, and extasie, and soothsayings, which happen to them which are taken with the falling sickness, or with a swoune, or to them in an agonie. A rapture is an abstraction, and alienation, and an illustration of the soul proceeding from God, by which God doth again retract the soul, being falled from above to hell, from hell to heaven. The cause of this is in us a continuall contemplation of sublime things, which as far as it conjoyns with a most profound intention of the mind, the soul to incorporeal wisdom, doth so far recall it self with its vehement agitations from things sensible and the body, and (as Plato saith) in such a manner sometimes, that it even flieth out of the body, and seemeth as it were dissolved: even as Aurelius Austin reporteth concerning a Priest of Calamia; (or whom we have made mention before) he lay (saith he) most like


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 unto  a dead man, without breath; and when he was burnt with fire and wounded, he felt it not; so great therefore is the command of the soul: viz. when it hath obtained its own nature, and is not oppressed by the allurements of the senses, that by its own power it suddenly ascendeth, not only remaining in the body, but even sometimes loosed from its fetters, and flyeth forth of the body to the supercelestiall habitations, where now it being most nigh, and most like to God, and made the receptacle of divine things, it is filled with the divine Light and Oracles. Whence Zoroastes saith, thou must ascend to the light it self, and to the beams of the Father, whence thy soul was sent thee, clothed with very much mind; and Trismegisius saith, it is nccessary that thou ascend above the heavens, and be far from the quire of spirits; and Pythagoras saith, if thou by leaving the body shalt pass into the spacious heavens, thou shalt be an immortall god. So we read that Hermes, Socrates, Xenocrates, Plato, Plotine, Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Zoroastes, were wont to abstract themselves by rapture, and so to learn the knowledge of many things: also we read in Herodotus, that there was in Proconnesus a Philosopher of wonderfull knowledge, called Atheus, whose soul sometimes went out of the body, and after the visitation of places far remote, returned again into the body more learned: Pliny reporteth the same thing, that the soul of Harman Clazomenius was wont to wander abroad, his body being left, and to bring true tidings of things very far off; and there are even to this day in Norway and Lapland very many who can abstract themselves three whole dayes from their body, and being returned declare many things which are afar off; and in the meantime it is necessary to keep them, that not any living creature come upon them or touch them; otherwise they report that they cannot return into their body. Therefore we must know, that (according to the doctrine of the Aegyptians,) seeing the soul is a certain spirituall light, when it is loosed from the body, it comprehendeth every place and time, in such a manner as a light inclosed in a Lanthern, which being open, difffseth it self every


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 where, and faileth not any where, for it is every where, and continually; and Cicero in his book of Divination saith, neither doth the soul of man at any time divine, when it is so loosed that it hath indeed little or nothing to do with the body; when therefore it shall attain to that state, which is the supream degree of contemplative perfection, then it is rapt from all created species, and understandeth not by acquired species, but by the inspection of the Ideas, and it knoweth all things by the light of the Ideas: of which light Plato saith few men are partakers in this life; but in the hands of the gods, all: also they who are troubled with the syncope and falling sickness, do in some manner imitate a rapture, and in these sicknesses sometimes as in a rapture do bring forth prophesie, in which kind of prophesying we read that Hercules and many Arabians were very excellent, and there are certain kinds of soothsayings, which are a middle betwixt the confines of naturall predictions, and supernaturall Oracles, viz. which declare things to come from some excess of passion, as too much love, sorrow, or amongst frequent sights, or in the agony of death, as in Statius, of the mother of Achilles;

"--Nor she without parents dear Under the glassie gulf the oars did fear."

For there is in our minds a certain perspicuous power, and capable of all things, but encumbred and hindred by the darkness of the body and mortality, but after death it having acquired immortality, and being freed from the body it hath full and perfect knowledge. Hence it cometh to pass, that they who are nigh to death, and weakened by old age, have sometimes somewhat of an unaccustomed light, because the soul being less hindred by the senses, understandeth very acutely, and being now as it were a little relaxed from its bands, is not altogether subject to the body, and being as it were nigher to the place, to the which it is about to go, it easily perceiveth revelations, which being mixed with its agonies, are then offered to it; whence Ambrose in his book of the belief of the resurrection, saith, Which being free


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 in the aerial motion, knoweth not whither it goeth, and whence it cometh; yet we know that it superviveth the body, and that it being freed, the chains of its senses being cast off, freely discerneth those things which it saw not before, being in the body, which we may estimate by the example of those who sleep, whose mind being quiet, their bodies being as it were buried, do elevate themselves to higher things, and do declare to the body the visions of things absent, yea even of celestial things.

Chapter li. Of Prophetical Dreams. Now I call that a dream, which proceedeth either from the spirit of the phantasie and intellect united together, or by the illustration of the Agent intellect above our souls, or by the true revelation of some divine power in a quiet and purified mind; for by this our soul receiveth true oracles, and abundantly yieldeth prophesies to us: for in dreams we seem both to Ask questions, and learn to read and find them out; also many doubtfull things, many Policies, many things unknown, and unwished for, nor ever attempted by our minds, are manifested to us in Dreams: also the representations of unknown places appear, and the Images of men both alive and dead, and of things to come are foretold; and also things which at any times have happened, are revealed, which we knew not by any report; and these dreams need not any art of interpretation, as those of which we have spoken in the first book, which belong to divination, not fore-knowledge; and it cometh to pass that they who see these dreams, for the most part understand them not; for (as Abdala the Arabian saith) as to see dreams, is from the strength of imagination, so to understand them, is from the strength of understanding; whose intellect therefore, being overwhelmed by the too much commerce of the flesh, is in a dead sleep, or its imaginative or phantastick spirit


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 is too dull and unpolished, that it cannot receive the species and representations which flow from the superior intellect, and retain them when received, this man is altogether unfit for the soothsaying by dreams. Therefore it is necessary, that he who would receive true dreams, should keep a pure, undisturbed, and an undisquieted imaginative spirit, and so compose it, that it may be made worthy of the knowledge and government by the mind and understanding: for such a spirit is most fit for prophesying, and (as Sinesius saith) is a most clear glass of all the Images which flow everywhere from all things: when therefore we are sound in body, not disturbed in mind, not dulled by meat or drink, nor sad through poverty, nor provoked by any vice of lust or wrath, but chastly going to bed, fall asleep, then our pure and divine soul being loosed from all hurtfull thoughts, and now freed by dreaming, is endowed with this divine spirit as an instrument, and doth receive those beams and representations which are darted down, and shine forth from the divine minde into it self; and as it were in a deifying glass, it doth far more certainly, clearly, and efficaciously behold all things, then by the Vulgar enquiry of the intellect, and by the discourse of reason; the divine power instructing the soul, being invited to their society by the opportunity of the nocturnal solitariness; neither further will that deity be wanting to him when he is awaked, which ruleth all his actions: whosoever therefore doth, by quiet and religious meditation, and by a diet temperate and moderated according to nature, preserve his spirit pure, doth very much prepare himself, that by this means he may become divine, and knowing all things; but whosoever, on the contrary, doth languish with a phantastick spirit, receiveth not perspicuous and distinct visions, but even as the divine sight, by reason of its weakness, Judgeth confusedly and indistinctly; and also when we are overcome with wine and drunkenness, then our spirit being oppressed with noxious vapours (as a troubled water is wont to appear in divers forms) is deceived, & waxeth dull; for which cause Amphiarus the Prophet (as we read in Philostratus) commanded those,


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 who would receive Oracles, to abstain one whole day from meat, and three days from wine, that the soul could not rightly prophesie unless it were free from wine, and meat; for to sober and religious minds, attending on the divine worship, the Gods are wont to give Oracles; whence Orpheus crieth out,

"- Thou spirit great of prophecy Dost go to souls that sleep fill quietly, And them inspire with knowledge of the Gods, And makest them soothsay -"

Hence it was a custom amongst the ancients, that they who should receive answers, certain sacred expiations and sacrifices being first celebrated, and divine worship ended, did religiously ly down even in a consecrated chamber, or at least on the skins of the sacrifices; of which ceremony Virgil makes mention in these verses,

"- Hence they sought Answers to doubts; when gifts the priests had brought, Here he reposed on skins of slaughtred sheep, And under silent night prepares to sleep."

And a little after he singeth,

"- But now Here King Latinus Oracles to know, They did a hundred choyce sheep sacrifice, And on their skins, and spreding fleeces lyes -"

And the rulers of the Lacedemonians (as Cicero saith) were wont to lye down in the Temple at Pasiphae, that they might dream. The same was done in the Temple of Aesculapius, from whom true dreams were thought to be sent forth. And the Calabrians, consulting Podalyrius the son of Aesculapius, did sleep neer his Sepulchre in lambes skins; for so doing they were told in their dreams whatsoever they desired to know; for the most usuall time for dreams is the night, when the senses