ately clapt his hands upon his eyes, and faid, Nolo hic videre Chriftum, &c. I will not fee Chrift here, it is enough for me that 1fball behold him in heaven.

To conclude.

My opinon upon the whole is this, that altho' it cannot be denied, but in fome grand, extraordinary cafes, as at the transfiguration and refurrection of Chrift, God did, and perhaps fometimes, tho' rarely, may order or permit departed fouls to return into this world; yet, for the most part, I judge those apparitions are not the fouls of the dead, but other ipirits, and, for the most part, evil ones.

Of this judgment was St. Auguftine, who when he had at full related the ftory above of the father's ghoft directing his fon to the accquittance; yet will not allow it to be the very foul of his father, but an angel: Where he farther adds, If (faith he) the fouls of the dead may be prefent in our affairs, they would not forfake us in this fort; especially my mother Monica, who in her life, could never be without me, furely fhe would not thus leave me being dead.

Obj. 1. But it was pleaded before, that we allow the apparition of angels; and departed fouls, if they be not angels, at least are equal unto angels, and in refpect of their late relation to us, are more propenfe to help us, than spirits of another fort can be supposed to be.

Sol. It seems too bold, and impofing upon fovereign Wifdom to tell him what meffengers are fitteft for him to fend and employ in his fervice; who hath taught him, or been his counfellor?

Obj. 2. But thefe offices feem to pertain properly to them, as they are not only fellow members, but the most excellent members of the myftical body, to whom it belongs to affift the meaner and weaker.

Sol. If there be any force of reafon in this plea, it carries rather for the angels than for departed fouls: for angels are gathered under the fame common head with faints; the text tells us, we are come to an innumerable company of angels : they and the faints are fellow-citizens, and we know they are a more noble order of fpirits; and as for their love to the elect, it is exceeding great, as great to be fure as the departed fouls of our dearest relatives can be. For after death they sustain no more civil relation to us all that they do fuftain, is as fellowmembers of the fame body, or fellow-citizens, which the angels alfo are as well as they.

* Lib. de cura mortuis.

Obj. 3. But, faith the doctor, the reafon why all nations pay fo great honour, and religious care to the will of the dead, is a fuppofition that they fill continue in the fame mind after death, and will avenge the falfifications of trusts upon injurious executors, elfe no reafon can be given why fo great a firefs fhould be laid upon the will of the dead.

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Sol. This is gratis dictum, to say no worse, a cheap and unwary expreffion: Can no reafon be given for the religious obfervance of the teftaments of the dead, but this fuppofition? I deny it for though they that made them be dead, yet God, who is witnefs to all fuch acts and trufts, liveth and though they cannot avenge the frauds, and injuftice of men, he both can and will do it, 1 Theff, iv. 6. which, I think, is a weightier ground and reafon to enforce duty upon men than the fear of ghosts. Befides, this is a cafe wherein all the living are concerned, all that die must commit a trust to them that furvive; and if frauds fhould be committed without impunity, who could fafely repofe confidence in another; Quad tanget omnes, tangi debet ab omnibus: that which is of general concernment, and becomes every man's intereft, infers a general obligation upon all.

As for the letters of Elijah, it is a vanity to think they came poft from heaven; no, no, they were doubtlets left behind him, out of due care to the government, and produced on that fit occafion.

Obj. 4. But what need of a law to prohibit necromancy or confultation with the dead, if it were not practicable?

Sol. I do not think the wicked art there prohibited enabled them to recal departed fouls; but it was a converfing with the devil who perfonated the dead, and therein a kind of homage was paid him to the difhonour of God; or he might poffibly raife the bodies of wicked men, and appear in them: but I think the fpirits of the dead return not, except as was before limited.

Obj. 5. But the matters they difcover are found to be true, and the caufes in which they concern themselves are just; real murders are detected by them, and real frauds and injuries corrected and rectified: but the devil being himself a liar, and deceiver, would never do it; it is not his intereft to discover or difcourage fuch things.

Sol. Though it be not his intereft merely to difcover it, yet it is certainly his intereft to precipitate wicked men, and haften their ruin by the hand of juftice; and he will speak the truth,

and feem to own a righteous cause, to bring about his great defign of ruining the fouls and bodies of men. I will shut up with three cautions.

Caution 1. Strain not confcience to enrich posterity: be true to the trufts committed to you by the dead, or by the living, remembring, that though they be dead, and cannot avenge the wrong, yet the Lord lives, and will furely do it in a feverer manner than they could, thould they appear in the moft terrible and frightful forms to you: Befides, your own confciences will haunt you worse than a ghost. Be just and true therefore in all your promises and trufts, for God is the avenger.

Caution 2. Finish your work for eternity before you die; for <6 as the cloud is confumed, and vanished away, fo he that go"eth down to the grave, hall come up no more; he fhall re"turn no more to his houfe, neither fhall his place know him 66 any more," Job. vii. 9, 10. Your fouls will be fixed in eternity foon after they are loofed from your bodies: when death comes, away you must go, willing or unwilling, ready or unready; but no returning hither, how willing foever.

Caution 3. Keep your felves from that heathenifh and accurfed practice of confulting the devil about your abfent or dead relations; a practice too common in fea-port towns, and of deep and heinous guilt before God: Ifa. viii. 19. "And when they shall fay unto you, feek unto them that have familiar fpirits, and unto wizards that peep and mutter; thould not a people feek "unto their God? for the living to the dead?""

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You need not call the devil twice, that fubtle and officious fpirit draws the living into his net by fuch a bait as this: You meet your mortal enemy under the difguife of your dead friend.

Query 5. Whether the feparated fouls of the juft in heaven have any converfe or communication with each other? and how that can be, feeing all the organs and inftruments of speech and hearing, are lid afide with their bodies?

It fems impoffible that feparated or unbodied fpirits should converfe together, feeing the inftruments by which the thoughts, are communicated from one to another, are perished in the grave. Suppofe the tongue of a man to be cut out, his eyes and hands perished, or made useless, whilft the foul remains in the body; it may enjoy its own thoughts within itself, but it is impoffible to fignify them to another by words or figus.

Or fuppofe a man in a deep fleep (wherein the fenfes are only bound for a little time) he may indeed exercise his own fancy in a pieafant dream, but another cannot understand how it is entertained; but in death the fenfes are not bound, but extinguifhed,

Befide, we must not think the felicity of the departed holy fouls to confift in mutual converfes one with another, but in their ineffable vifions of God, and communion with him. To him who is omnifcient, and understands their most inward thoughts, they can freely communicate them, and receive his, as well as pour forth their own love; but to do it to their fellow creatures, who fee not as God doth, feems impoffible.

Indeed it was never doubted, but after the refurrection they fhall both know and talk with one another in a more excellent and perfect manner than now they do; but till that time, the reafons above feem to perfuade us, that all the converses above, are only betwixt God and them, which indeed is enough to make them happy; and indeed if this ability be allowed to feparated fouls, it feems to render the refurrection of their bodies needlefs; for they are well enough without them. But certainly the fpirits of juft men are not mutes; fuch an august assembly of holy and excellent fpirits, do not live together in their Father's houfe without mutual converfe and fellowship with each other, as well as with God.

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That acute and judicious divine, Mr. Jofeph Symonds, in his epiftle to his book, intituled, Sight and faith, expreffeth himself about this matter thus: I often think (faith he) of the com⚫munion of the fpirits of men, which is certainly more than many are acquainted with though we act one upon another in our prefent flate, by the help of fenfe; yet we are wrought and defigned to a more excellent way. Angels, and the fpirits of men made perfect, converse and trade in a mutual • communication, not without fenfe, but without fuch fenfe as • ours. This, as eternal life, begins here, and is found in fome degrees in this mortal ftate, though not in fo vifible appearances as to ly open to much obfervation.

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Angels, good and bad, do act upon our fpirits, and our fpirits hold converfe with them, and with the Father of fpirits, which may be difcerned in fecret parlies and difcourfes betwixt ⚫ them and us; much of this appears in David's pfalms and ⚫ there paffeth not only an inward fpeech, but there are invifible • approaches, entertainments and touches, which Paul found ⚫ when bound in the Spirit, and under the working of God, ⚫ which wrought in him mightily, Col. i. 29. It is alfo moft⚫ certain that our fouls are not mute, and fhut out from all mutual traffic with each other, except what they have by the ⚫ mediation of fenfes.

Inftances are found, that (as they fay of two needles touched with the loadftone) the spirit of one at a diftance, hath found

⚫itfelf affected with the motion and state of another. And this

we are all fenfible of, that there is a strong defire in us to 'communion of fpirits; and that, because the way most ready and convenient to our bodily ftate is by fenfe, we are carried with much inclination to maintain intercourse of our minds and fpirits by fenfe; but, as being made to a better way, our fouls are not fatisfied with this prefent way, as being both painful and fhort. We cannot give an exact copy of our ⚫ apprehenfions, defires, defigns, delights and other affections, by these two great mediators of communion, the eye, and the ear: but, because we are in fo great a meafure confined to this courfe, our fouls, as it were, ftand in these two gates, to • fend and receive mutual embaffies from each other. Which way, as it is fhort in itfelf, fo it is much shortened by distances, difaffections, impotencies, and difparities."

I cannot imagine, that men, in a state of imperfection, should have fo many ways to communicate their minds, as by fpeaking, writing, &c. yea, that the very birds, and beasts, are, by nature, enabled to fignify to each other their inclinations; and that the fpirits of juft men (which are the best of all human spirits, and that when made perfect too, which is the beft, and highest state attainable by them) fhould have none, but live at a greater difadvantage, in this refpect, than they did, or the very birds, and beafts in this world do. The fum of my thoughts, about this matter, I will lay down in the following fections.

Sect. 1. The state of heaven, (as was at large opened in our eleventh propofition) being an affociation of angels, and bleffed fouls, for the glorifying and praising of God in his temple there, and this worship being carried on by joint confent, as appears by their joint afcriptions of glory to God, Rev. vii. 9, 10, 11, 12. they must of neceffity, for the orderly carrying on of this heavenly worship, understand each others minds, and communicate their thoughts: for without this it is not imaginable how a joint or common fervice, in which thousands of thoufands are employed, can be decorously and orderly managed, except we' conceive of them as fo many machines, or wind-inftruments that are managed by an intelligent agent, though themselves be fenfe lefs and merely paffive certainly their confent is a different thing from that of the keys of a harpficord, or ftrings of a lute, they are intelligent beings, who, underftand their own and each others mind and befides, without this ability, that fociety in heaven would be lefs comfortable, as to mutual refreshing fellowship, than the fociety of faints is here. So that it is not to be doubted, but these noble and excellent spirits can, and do