It being manifest by what we have laid down that there are apparitions and some such other strange effects, whereby murthers are often made known and discovered, and also having mentioned that it may be most rationally probable that they are caused by the Astral or Sydereal Spirit, it will be necessary to open and explain that point, and to shew what grounds it hath, upon which it may be settled, which we shall do in this order.
Immort. of the Soul. c. 16. sect. 8. p. 296.
De verb. Apost. lib. Serm. 18.
Idem contr. Pelag.
c. 28. Tom. 7.
1. There are many (especially Popish Authors thereby to uphold their Doctrine of Purgatory) that maintain that they are the Souls of the persons murthered and deceased, and this opinion, though unanswerably confuted by the whole company of reformed Divines, is notwithstanding revived by Dr. Henry Moore, but by no arguments either brought from Scripture, or grounded upon any solid reasons, but only some weak conjectures, seeming absurdities, and Platonick whimsies, which (indeed) merit no responsion. And we have by positive and unwrested Scriptures, in this Treatise afore proved, that the Souls of the righteous are in Abrahams bosom with Christ at peace and rest, and that the Souls of the wicked are in Hell in torments, so that neither of them do wander here, or make any apparitions; for as S. Augustine taught us: Duo sunt habitacula, unum in igne æterno, alterum in regno æterno. And in another place: Nec est ulli ullus medius locus, ut possit esse nisi cum Diabolo, qui non est cum Christo. And Tertullian and Justin Martyr, two most ancient writers do tell us: “That Souls being separated from their Bodies, do not stay or linger upon the earth: And after they be descended into the infernal pit, they do neither wander here upon their own accord, nor by the power and command of others; But that wicked spirits may counterfeit by craft that they are the Souls of the dead, Vid. Lavaterum de Spectris secunda parte c. 5.”
2. We have also shewed that these apparitions that discover murther and murtherers and brings them to condign punishment, cannot be the evil Angels, because they are only Ministers of torture, sin, horror and punishment, but are not Authors of any good either Corporeal or Spiritual, apparent or real. So that it must of necessity be left either to be acted by a Divine Power, and that either by the immediate power of the Almighty, for which we have no proof, but only may acknowledge the possibility of it; or mediate by the ministery of good Angels, which is hard to prove, there being no one instance, or the least intimation of any such matter in all the Scriptures, and therefore in most rational probability, either relations of matters of fact of this nature are utterly false, or they are effected by the Astral spirit.
Vid. lib. Sagac. Philos. passim.
3. Concerning the description of this Astral Spirit or Sydereal Body, (for though it be as a spirit, or the image in the looking-glass, yet it is truly corporeal) we shall give the sum of it, as Paracelsus in his magisterial way, without proof doth lay down. “He positively holdeth that there are three essential parts in Man, which he calleth the three great substances, and that at death every one of these being separated, doth return into, or unto the Womb from whence it came; as The Soul that was breathed in by God, doth at death return unto God that gave it: And that the Body, that is to say, that gross part that seems to be composed of the two inferior Elements of Earth and Water, doth return unto the Earth, and there in time consume away, some bodies in a longer time, some in a shorter: But the third part which he calleth the Astral Spirit, or Sydereal Body, as being firmamental, and consisting of the two superior Elements of Air and Fire, it (he saith) returneth into its Sepulcher of the Air, where in time it is also consumed, but requireth a longer time than the body, in regard it consisteth of more pure Elements than the other, and that one of these Astral Spirits or Bodies doth consume sooner than another, as they are more impure, or pure. And that it is this spirit that carrieth along with it the thoughts, cogitations, desires and imaginations that were impressed upon the mind at the time of death, with the sensitive faculties of concupiscibility and irascibility. And that it is this spirit or body (and not the Soul that resteth in the hands of the Lord) that appeareth, and is most usually conversant in those places, and those negotiations that the mind of the person living (whose spirit it was) did most earnestly follow, and especially those things that at the very point of death, were most strongly impressed upon this spirit, as in the case of the person murthered, whose mind in the very minute of the murther, receiveth a most deep impression of detestation and revenge against the murtherer, which this spirit bearing with it, doth by all means possible seek the accomplishment of that revenge, and therefore doth cause dreams of discovery, bleedings and strange motions of the body murthered, and sometimes plain apparitions of the persons murthered, in their usual shape and habit, and doth vocally and audibly reveal the murther with all the circumstances,” as is apparent in the two forementioned Histories of the apparition of Fletcher to Raynard, and of the Woman murthered by Mark Sharp, to the Miller Grimes.
De Anim. Brut. c. 1, 2.