But all this Guess and Uncertainty is a Trifle, to the vast Discoveries of these Explicatory Optick-Glasses; for here are seen the Nature and Consequences of Secret Mysteries: Here are read strange Mysteries relating to Predestination, Eternal Decrees, and the like: Here 'tis plainly prov'd, That Predestination is, in spight of all Enthusiastick Pretences, so intirely committed into Man's Power, that whoever pleases to hang himself to Day, won't Live till to Morrow: no, though Forty Predestination Prophets were to tell him, His time was not yet come. There abstruse Points are commonly and solemnly Discuss'd here; and these People are such Hereticks, that they say God's Decrees are all subservient to the means of his Providence; That what we call Providence is a subjecting all things to the great Chain of Causes and Consequences, by which that one Grand Decree, That all Effects shall Obey, without reserve to their proper moving Causes, supercedes all subsequent Doctrines, or pretended Decrees, or Predestination in the World: That by this Rule, he that will kill himself, GOD, Nature, Providence, or Decree, will not be concern'd to hinder him, but he shall Die; any Decrees, Predestination, or Fore-Knowledge of Infinite Power, to the contrary in any wise, notwithstanding that it is in a Man's Power to throw himself into the Water, and be Drown'd; and to kill another Man, and he shall Die, and to say, God appointed it, is to make him the Author of Murther, and to injure the Murtherer in putting him to Death for what he could not help doing.
All these things are received Truths here, and no doubt would be so every where else, if the Eyes of Reason were opened to the Testimony of Nature, or if they had the helps of these most Incomparable Glasses.
Some pretended, by the help of these Second-sight Glasses, to see the common Periods of Life; and Others said, they could see a great way beyond the leap in the Dark: I confess, all I could see of the first was, that holding up the Glass against the Sea, I plainly saw, as it were on the edge of the Horizon, these Words,
The Verge of Life and Death is here.
'Tis best to know where 'tis, but not how far.
As to seeing beyond Death, all the Glasses I lookt into for that purpose, made but little of it; and these were the only Tubes that I found Defective; for here I could discern nothing but Clouds, Mists, and thick dark hazy Weather; but revolving in my Mind, that I had read a certain Book in our own Country, called, Nature; it presently occurr'd, That the Conclusion of it, to all such as gave themselves the trouble of making out those foolish things call'd Inferences, was always Look up; upon which, turning one of their Glasses Up, and erecting the Point of it towards the Zenith, I saw these Words in the Air, REVELATION, in large Capital Letters.
I had like to have rais'd the Mob upon me for looking upright with this Glass; for this, they said, was prying into the Mysteries of the Great Eye of the World; That we ought to enquire no farther than he has inform'd us, and to believe what he had left us more Obscure: Upon this, I laid down the Glasses, and concluded, that we had Moses and the Prophets, and should be never the likelier to be taught by One come from the Moon.
In short, I found, indeed, they had a great deal more Knowledge of things than we in this World; and that Nature, Science, and Reason, had obtained great Improvements in the Lunar World; but as to Religion, it was the same equally resign'd to and concluded in Faith and Redemption; so I shall give the World no great Information of these things.
I come next to some other strange Acquirements obtained by the helps of these Glasses; and particularly for the discerning the Imperceptibles of Nature; such as, the Soul, Thought, Honesty, Religion, Virginity, and an Hundred other nice things, too small for humane Discerning.
The Discoveries made by these Glasses, as to the Soul, are of a very diverting Variety; some Hieroglyphical, and Emblematical, and some Demonstrative.
The Hieroglyphical Discoveries of the Soul make it appear in the Image of its Maker; and the Analogy is remarkable, even in the very Simily; for as they represent the Original of Nature as One Great Eye, illuminating as well as discerning all things; so the Soul, in its Allegorical, or Hieroglyphical Resemblance, appears as a Great Eye, embracing the Man, enveloping, operating, and informing every Part; from whence those sort of People who we falsly call Politicians, acting so much to put out this Great Eye, by acting against their common Understandings, are very aptly represented by a great Eye, with Six or Seven pair of Spectacles on; not but that the Eye of their Souls may be clear enough of it self, as to the common Understanding; but that they happen to have occasion to look sometimes so many ways at once, and to judge, conclude, and understand so many contrary ways upon one and the same thing; that they are fain to put double Glasses upon their Understanding, as we look at the Solar Ecclipses, to represent 'em in different Lights, least their Judgments should not be wheadled into a Compliance with the Hellish Resolutions of their Wills; and this is what I call the Emblematick Representation of the Soul.