Looking unto Jesus a view of the everlasting gospel, or, the souls eying of…

1. How do the Angels speak to us? We must conceive if we understand this, first that the Images, or phantasms of things received by the outward senses, are kept, and preserved by the inward senses, as the species of sounds, of shapes, or whatsoever else. 2. That the images phantasms so kept, may be so moved by our spirits, or humours, or some extrinsical things, as that they may move the fancy, and provoke it to represent, and conceive such things as neither appear, nor are at that time perceived by any outward sense at all. This appears, 1. In our ordinary course, as we can sit in the dark, where we hear and see nothing, and yet there we can multiply a fancy in infinitum, by an act of our own Will. 2. This appears in our dreams, when though we hear or see nothing, yet the humour can stir up the memory of things, and provoke our fancies to the apprehension of this or that. 3. This appears also in sickness, which altering the body, and the humours, and so troubling the fancy, it begets strange fancies, and makes dreadful and fearful representations unto us: now this we must know, that whatsoever an inferior Power can do, that a superior Power can do much more; whatsoever an act of our own Will, or natural Dreams, or preternatural sickness can do, that the Angels can do most orderly, and efficaciously; they know exactly how the Spirits and humours must be moved, that the images or phantasms may be applied to such and such conceptions or apprehensions, most accommodate and fitted for the knowledge of what truth they would suggest. So that to me here is the difference between the converse of Men and Angels; Men can speak to our understandings by the mediation of our external senses, but Angels go a nearer way to work, and speak to the internals first of all: they do no more but come into the memory (the treasurer of all our phantasms and imaginations) and there make such and such compositions even as they please, and then the understanding takes them off, and reads what is written, without more ado.

1. How do the Angels speak to us? We must conceive if we understand this, first that the Images, or phantasms of things received by the outward senses, are kept, and preserved by the inward senses, as the species of sounds, of shapes, or whatsoever else. 2. That the images phantasms so kept, may be so moved by our spirits, or humours, or some extrinsecal things, as that they may move the fancy, and provoke it to represent, and conceive such things as neither appear, nor are at that time perceived by any outward sence at all. This appears, 1. In our ordinary course, as we can sit in the dark, where we hear and see nothing, and yet there we can multiply a fancy in infinitum, by an act of our own Will. 2. This appears in our dreams, when though we hear or see nothing, yet the humour can stir up the memory of things, and provoke our fancies to the apprehension of this or that. 3. This appears also in sickness, which altering the body, and the humours, and so troubling the fancy, it begets strange fancies, and makes dreadful and fearfull representations unto us: now this we must know, that whatsoever an inferiour Power can do, that a superiour Power can do much more; whatsoever an act of our own Will, or natural Dreams, or preternatural sickness can do, that the Angels can do most orderly, and efficaciously; they know exactly how the Spirits and humors must be moved, that the images or phantasms may be applyed to such and such conceptions or apprehensions, most accommodate and fitted for the knowledg of what truth they would suggest. So that to me here is the difference between the converse of Men and Angels; Men can speak to our understandings by the mediation of our external senses, but Angels go a nearer way to work, and speak to the internals first of all: they do no more but come into the memory (the treasurer of all our phantasms and imaginations) and there make such and such compositions even as they please, and then the understanding takes them off, and reads what is written, without more ado.