The Major Works (English Library) (14 page)

50. I cannot tell how to say that fire is the essence of hell, I know not what to make of Purgatory, or conceive a flame that can either prey upon, nor purifie the substance of a soule; those flames of sulphure mentioned in the Scriptures,
³¹⁴
I take not to be understood of this present Hell,
³¹⁵
but of that to come, where fire shall make up the complement of our tortures, & have a body or subject wherein to manifest its tyranny: Some who have had the honour to be textuarie
³¹⁶
in Divinity, are of opinion it shall be the same specificall fire with ours. This is hard to conceive, yet can I make good how even that may prey upon our bodies, and yet not consume us: for in this materiall world, there are bodies that persist invincible in the powerfullest flames, and though by the action of fire they fall into ignition and liquation,
³¹⁷
yet will they never suffer a destruction: I
would gladly know how
Moses
with an actuall fire calcin’d,
³¹⁸
or burnt the golden Calfe into powder: for that mysticall mettle of gold, whose solary and celestial nature I admire, exposed unto the violence of fire, grows onely hot and liquifies, but consumeth not: so when the consumable and volatile pieces of our bodies shall be refined into a more impregnable and fixed temper like gold, though they suffer from the action of flames, they shall never perish, but lie immortall in the armes of fire. And surely if this frame must suffer onely by the action of this element, there will many bodies escape, and not onely Heaven, but earth will not bee at an end, but rather a beginning; For at present it is not earth, but a composition of fire, water, earth, and aire; but at that time spoyled of these ingredients, it shall appeare in a substance more like it selfe, its ashes. Philosophers that opinioned the worlds destruction by fire, did never dreame of annihilation, which is beyond the power of sublunary causes; for the last and proper action of that element is but vitrification
or a reduction of a body into Glasse; & therefore some of our Chymicks
³¹⁹
facetiously affirm, that at the last fire all shall be crystallized & reverberated
³²⁰
into glasse, which is the utmost action of that element. Nor need we fear this term ‘annihilation’ or wonder that God will destroy the workes of his Creation: for man subsisting, who is, and will then truely appeare a Microcosme, the world cannot bee said to be destroyed. For the eyes of God, and perhaps also of our glorified selves, shall as really behold and contemplate the world in its Epitome or contracted essence, as now it doth at large and in its dilated substance.
³²¹
In the seed of a Plant to the eyes of God, and to the understanding of man, there exists, though in an invisible way, the perfect leaves, flowers, and fruit thereof: (for things that are in
posse
to the sense, are actually existent to the understanding.) Thus God beholds all things, who contemplates as fully his
workes in their Epitome, as in their full volume, and beheld as amply the whole world in that little compendium of the sixth day, as in the scattered and dilated pieces of those five before.

51. Men commonly set forth the torments of Hell by fire, and the extremity of corporall afflictions, and describe Hell in the same method that
Mahomet
doth Heaven. This indeed makes a noyse, and drums in popular eares: but if this be the terrible piece thereof, it is not worthy to stand in diameter with Heaven, whose happinesse consists in that part that is best able to comprehend it, that immortall essence, that translated divinity and colony of God, the soule.
³²²
Surely though wee place Hell under earth, the Devils walke and purlue is about it; men speake too popularly who place it in those flaming mountaines,
³²³
which to grosser apprehensions represent Hell. The heart of man is the place the devill dwels in; I feele sometimes a hell within my selfe,
Lucifer
keeps his court in my brest,
Legion
³²⁴
is revived in me. There are as many hels as
Anaxagoras
conceited worlds: there was more than one hell in
Magdalen
, when there were seven devils; for every devill is an hell unto himselfe: hee holds enough of torture in his owne
ubi
, and needs not the misery of circumference to afflict him, and thus a distracted conscience here is a shadow or introduction unto hell hereafter; Who can but pity the mercifull intention of those hands that doe destroy themselves? the devill were it in his power would doe the like, which being impossible his miseries are endlesse, and he suffers most in that attribute wherein he is impassible,
³²⁵
his immortality.

52. I thanke God, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of Hell, nor never grew pale at the description of that place; I have so fixed my contemplations on Heaven, that I have almost forgot the Idea of Hell, and am afraid rather to lose the joyes of the one than endure the misery of the other; to be deprived of them is a perfect hell, & needs me thinkes no addition to compleate our afflictions; that terrible terme hath never
detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof: I feare God, yet am not afraid of him, his mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before his judgements afraid thereof: these are the forced and secondary method of his wisedome, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation, a course rather to deterre the wicked, than incite the vertuous to his worship. I can hardly thinke there was ever any scared into Heaven, they goe the fairest way to Heaven, that would serve God without a Hell, other Mercentaries that crouch unto him in feare of Hell, though they terme themselves the servants, are indeed but the slaves of the Almighty.

53. And to be true, and speake my soule, when I survey the occurrences of my life, and call into account the finger of God, I can perceive nothing but an abysse and masse of mercies, either in generall to mankind, or in particular to my selfe; and whether out of the prejudice of my affection, or an inverting and partiall conceit of his mercies, I know not, but those which others terme crosses, afflictions, judgements, misfortunes, to me who enquire farther into them than their visible effects, they both appeare, and in event have ever proved the secret and dissembled favours of his affection. It is a singular piece of wisedome to apprehend truly, and without passion the workes
of God, and so well to distinguish his justice from his mercy, as not to miscall those noble attributes; yet it is likewise an honest piece of Logick so to dispute and argue the proceedings of God, as to distinguish even his judgements into mercies. For God is mercifull unto all, because better to the worst, than the best deserve, and to say he punisheth none in this world, though it be a Paradox, is no absurdity. To one that hath committed murther, if the Judge should say, onely ordaine a Fine,
³²⁶
it were a madnesse to call this a punishment, and to repine at the sentence, rather than admire the clemency of the Judge. Thus our offences being mortall, and deserving not onely death, but damnation, if the goodnesse of God be content to traverse and passe them over with a losse, misfortune, or disease; what frensie were it to terme this a punishment, rather than an extremity of mercy, and to groane under the rod of his judgements,
rather than admire the Scepter of his mercies? Therefore to adore, honour, and admire him, is a debt of gratitude due from the obligation of our nature, states, and conditions; and with these thoughts, he that knowes them best, will not deny that I adore him; that I obtaine Heaven, and the blisse thereof, is accidentall, and not the intended worke of my devotion, it being a felicitie I can neither thinke to deserve, nor scarse in modesty to expect. For these two ends of us all, either as rewards or punishments, are mercifully ordained and disproportionally disposed unto our actions, the one being so far beyond our deserts, the other so infinitely below our demerits.

54. There is no salvation to those that beleeve not in Christ, that is, say some, since his Nativity, and as Divinity affirmeth, before also; which makes me much apprehend the end of those honest Worthies and Philosophers which died before his Incarnation. It is hard to place those soules in Hell whose worthy lives doe teach us vertue on earth; methinks amongst those many subdivisions of hell, there might have bin one Limbo left for these:
³²⁷
What a strange vision will it be to see their poeticall fictions converted into verities, & their imagined & fancied Furies, into reall Devils? how strange to them will sound the History of
Adam
, when they shall suffer for him they never heard of? when they derive their Genealogy from the Gods, shall know they are the unhappy issue of sinfull man? It is an insolent part of reason to controvert the works of God, or question the justice of his proceedings; Could humility teach others, as it hath instructed me, to contemplate the infinite and incomprehensible distance betwixt the Creator and the creature, or did wee seriously perpend that one Simile of Saint
Paul, Shall the vessell say to the Potter, Why hast thou made me thus?
³²⁸
it would prevent these arrogant disputes of reason, nor would wee argue the definitive sentence of God, either to Heaven or Hell. Men that live according to the right rule and law of reason, live but in their owne kinde, as beasts doe in theirs; who justly obey the prescript of their natures, and therefore cannot
reasonably demand a reward of their actions, as onely obeying the naturall dictates of their reason. It will therefore, and must at last appeare, that all salvation is through Christ; which verity I feare these great examples of vertue must confirme, and make it good, how the perfectest actions of earth have no title or claime unto Heaven.

55. Nor truely doe I thinke the lives of these or of any other were ever correspondent, or in all points conformable unto their doctrines; it is evident that
Aristotle
transgressed the rule of his owne Ethicks;
³²⁹
the Stoicks that condemne passion, and command a man to laugh in
Phalaris
his Bull, could not endure without a groane a fit of the stone or collick. The
Scepticks
that affirmed they know nothing, even in that opinion confute themselves, and thought they knew more than all the world beside.
Diogenes
I hold to bee the most vaineglorious man of his time, and more ambitious in refusing all honours, than
Alexander
in rejecting none. Vice and the Devill put a fallacie upon our reasons and provoking us too hastily to run from it, entangle and profound us deeper in it. The Duke of
Venice
, that weds himselfe unto the Sea, by a ring of Gold,
³³⁰
I will not argue of prodigality, because it is a solemnity of good use and consequence in the State. But the Philosopher
³³¹
that threw his money into the Sea to avoyd avarice, was a notorious prodigal. There is no road or ready way to vertue, it is not an easie point of art to disentangle our selves from this riddle, or web of sin: To perfect vertue, as to Religion, there is required a Panoplia or compleat armour,
³³²
that whilst we lye at close ward against one vice we lye open to the vennie
³³³
of another: And indeed wiser discretions that have the thred of reason to conduct them, offend without a pardon; whereas under heads
³³⁴
may stumble without dishonour. There goe so many circumstances to piece
up one good action, that it is a lesson to be good, and wee are forced to be vertuous by the booke. Againe, the practice of men holds not an equall pace, yea, and often runnes counter to their Theory; we naturally know what is good, but naturally pursue what is evill:
³³⁵
the Rhetoricke wherewith I perswade another cannot perswade my selfe: there is a depraved appetite in us, that will with patience heare the learned instructions of Reason; but yet performe no farther than agrees to its owne irregular Humour. In briefe, we all are monsters, that is, a composition of man and beast, wherein we must endeavour to be as the Poets fancy that wise man
Chiron
,
³³⁶
that is, to have the Region of Man above that of Beast, and sense to sit but at the feete of reason. Lastly, I doe desire with God, that all, but yet affirme with men, that few shall know salvation, that the bridge is narrow, the passage straite unto life;
³³⁷
yet those who doe confine the Church of God, either to particular Nations, Churches, or Families, have made it farre narrower than our Saviour ever meant it.
³³⁸

56. The vulgarity of those judgements that wrap the Church of God in
Strabo
’s cloake and restraine it unto Europe,
³³⁹
seeme to mee as bad Geographers as
Alexander
, who thought hee had conquer’d all the world when hee [had] not subdued the halfe of any part thereof: For wee cannot deny the Church of God both in Asia and Africa, if we doe not forget the peregrinations of the Apostles, the death of their Martyrs, the sessions of many, and even in our reformed
³⁴⁰
judgement lawfull councells held in those parts in the minoritie and nonage of ours: nor must a few differences more remarkable in the eyes of man than perhaps in the judgement of God, excommunicate from heaven
one another, much lesse those Christians who are in a manner all Martyrs, maintaining their faith in the noble way of persecution, and serving God in the fire, whereas we honour him but in the Sunshine. ’Tis true we all hold there is a number of Elect
³⁴¹
and many to be saved, yet take our opinions together, and from the confusion thereof there will be no such thing as salvation, nor shall any one be saved; for first the Church of
Rome
con-demneth us, wee likewise them, the Sub-reformists and Sectaries
³⁴²
sentence the Doctrine of our Church as damnable, the Atomist, or Familist
³⁴³
reprobates all these, and all these them againe. Thus whilst the mercies of God doth promise us heaven, our conceits and opinions exclude us from that place. There must be therefore more than one Saint
Peter
, particular Churches and Sects usurpe the gates of heaven, and turne the key against each other, and thus we goe to heaven against each others wills, conceits and opinions, and with as much uncharity as ignorance, doe erre I feare in points, not onely of our own, but on[e] anothers salvation.