, and the supernatural Star,
have all their peculiar and mystical meaning.
Nor was that Dream which hapned to _Pilates_ Wife natural, who unjustly
adjudged our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to death. The Vision of the
Angels which appeared to the Shepherds at the Birth of Christ, and to
the Women at his Sepulchre, who sought his Body where they had laid it,
cannot be accounted Natural.
There are many other supernatural things done at several times by the
Prophets & Saints; so was the voice of the Ass speaking to _Balaam_,
contrary to the common course of Nature; as also _Joseph_'s
Interpretation of Dreams. And so God by his Angels preserves us
oftentimes from infinite Evils, and delivers us out of manifold Dangers,
impossible for Nature to do.
All this & many others belong to Theology, and to Heaven, whereunto the
Soul is to have regard. Now follows the supernatural things of the
visible Works of God, as we see them in the Firmament; to wit, the
Planets, Stars, and Elements, which are above our Reason, only their
Course and Motion is observed by speculation and reckoning, which
belongs to Astronomy; it is a visible but incomprehensible Being,
performing its operation in a Magnetick way, out of which likewise
divers admirable things are found and observed, which are altogether
supernatural; understand it thus, that the Heaven operates in the Earth,
and the Earth affords a correspondence with the Heavenly. For the Earth
hath also its seven Planets, which are operated and bred by the seven
Celestial, only by a spiritual Impression or Infusion, even as the Stars
operate all Minerals. This is done incomprehensibly and spiritually, and
therefore it is to be accounted supernatural, even as two Lovers, their
persons are visible, but their Love one to the other is invisible:
Humane Bodies are tangible and natural, but Love is invisible,
spiritual, intangible and supernatural, comparable to a Magnetick
Attraction only; for the invisible Love which is attracted unto it
spiritually by the Imagination is, accomplish'd by the desires and
fruition. In like manner when the Heaven hath a love to the Earth, and
the Earth hath a Love, Inclination, and Affection towards Man, as the
great World to the lesser, for the lesser World is taken out of the
greater, and when the Earth by the desires of its invisible Imagination
doth attract unto itself such a Love of the Heaven, there is thereby an
Union of the Superiour and Inferiour, as Man
|