Page images
PDF
EPUB

Charles the Beloved, and was exceedingly tendered by the generality of his people.

A good spirit, an angelic spirit, one of the sacred guard I have supposed to be placed about this earth, or in the regions adjacent, and employed by their bountiful Maker for the good of mankind, would never have come in such a manner, surprising, and at unawares. It would never have put on a fierce and frightful countenance, thus to have terrified a poor distempered prince, whose brain was already disordered; taking the advantage of his weakness, and so to increase the frenzy and distraction of his mind even to his destruction, for he never more perfectly recovered his senses.

This mightily differed from the conduct of the several spirits appearing in the examples mentioned before, and who kindly warned the persons of danger, foretold events that they might avoid them, or prepare for the consequences; in a word, this was an apparition purely devilish, for it was merely to do evil, and to the ruin of the person to whom it appeared.

I think nothing can be a juster rule for us to distinguish apparitions by: the evil spirit, devil like, comes to deceive, he is the father of lies; and comes to do hurt, he is a lover and the author of mischief. The good spirit is from God, the fountain of all good, and appears always for good and merciful purposes; and this I think is a just observation, and a rule for us to judge of the nature of whatever apparitions we hear of.

CHAP. X.

Of the different nature of apparitions; how we should behave to them; when to be afraid of or concerned about them, and when not.

DANGER may be the reason of caution; but guilt only is the reason of fear. Caution is the mind's just regard to the evil in view; but fear is a horror of the soul, in apprehension of some further evil yet out of view; unseen, and therefore terrible; merited, and therefore dreadful.

If there were no guilt in the mind, death itself would be no evil, and therefore not the subject of our fear; nor is death itself our fear now, as it is in itself a mere passing out of life, otherwise than as it is an inlet of some terrible state beyond it. It is not what we pass out of, that is the bitterness, but what we pass into; not what we part with, but what the exchange will be; not the leap out of light, but the leap into the dark and to come nearer to it, the thought of what is beyond death is only made better or worse by what we know on this side of it; the dread of what is to come, is founded on our conscious sense of what is past.

This state beyond death is made our terror, as we expect in it the punishment of offences, a retribution for an ill-spent life, and as we have upon our minds a sense of guilt; that is to say, a conscience of having ill-spent our past time, and dreading the justice of the superior hand, in whom is the power of rewards and punishments. Now to bring it to the case in hand.

All apparition is looked upon as a something

coming, or sent to us, from that state of being which is beyond death, and therefore is looked upon with the same terror and fright which we are seized with at the thoughts of death itself.

Hence if we could consider calmly the nature of the apparition which we see, we might presently know whether we had reason to be terrified at the apparition, yea, or no: if the apparition comes with a message of peace, if it reprehends with kindness and tenderness, if it admonishes with gentleness, and gives advice to amend and reform, it certainly comes from a good hand, and we need be under no concern at all about it, because it has no evil in itself.

If it come in all its threatening postures, ghastly as the Devil can make it, horrible as himself in person; yet were there no guilt there would be no fear from the apparition, or even from the Devil appearing in person; because we should know ourselves to be out of his power.

As then the good or evil of the message, which the apparition brings, distinguishes the apparition itself, and tells us of what kind it is; so, as our minds are or are not intimidated by our own guilt, so we have or have not reason to be surprised at the appearance of a messenger, or messengers, from the invisible world, or at whatever he shall say.

Hic murus aheneus esto,

Nil conscire sibi, nullâ palescere culpâ.

Mr. Aubery gives us the story in his Miscellanea of the apparition to Cashio Burroughs, esq., in the time of king Charles I. and which I hinted at just now on another occasion; the story is as follows:

"Sir John Burroughs being sent envoy to the emperor by king Charles I., did take his eldest son Cashio Burroughs along with him; and taking his journey through Italy, left his said son at Florence,

to learn the language; where he having an intrigue with a beautiful courtesan, mistress to the grand duke, their familiarity became so public, that it came to the duke's ear, who took a resolution to have him murdered; but Cashio having had timely notice of the duke's design, by some of the English there, immediately left the city without acquainting his mistress of it, and came to England. Whereupon the duke being disappointed of his revenge, fell upon his mistress in most reproachful language: she, on the other side, resenting the sudden departure of her gallant, of whom she was most passionately enamoured, killed herself. At the same moment that she expired she did appear to Cashio at his lodgings in London. Colonel Remes was then in bed with him, who saw her as well as he, giving him an account of her resentments of his ingratitude to her, in leaving her so suddenly, and exposing her to the fury of the duke; not omitting her own tragical exit; adding withal, that he should be slain in a duel; which accordingly happened and thus she appeared to him frequently, even when his younger brother (who afterwards was sir John) was in bed with him. As often as

she did appear he would cry out with great shrieking and trembling of his body, as well as anguish of mind, saying, O God! here she comes, she comes! and at this rate she appeared till he was killed. She appeared to him the morning before he was killed. Some of my acquaintance (says Aubery) have told me, that he was one of the handsomest men in England, and very valiant."

The appearance of this devil, for I can call it no other, had nothing in view but to harass, plague, and affright the gentleman: perhaps expecting it should bring him into some fit of desperation; so to destroy himself, as the woman who appeared had done before.

H. A.

The gentleman whom it appeared to, was conscious of crime; the woman in whose shape the Devil thus harassed him was a courtesan, that is, in English, a common woman, with whom he had had an intrigue in Italy: he had not only been dishonest with her, but it seems had been dishonest to her; and the last, with the assistance of the Devil, had, it seems, worked so upon her rage, as to cause her to be her own executioner; and I take the apparition to be the Devil pursuing the same management, and endeavouring to produce the same effect upon him.

Now see the consequence of crime: the sense of guilt makes this apparition dreadful to him; when it appeared, he trembles, falls into convulsions, cries out, O God! here she comes! and, in a word, is in an agony of horror and affright.

Had he only conversed with the lady as a common acquaintance, had he neither been concerned with her, or had done any dishonourable thing by her, he had natural courage to have looked the devil in the face, and boldly have asked what business she could have with him.

I have read of a story of a very religious lady, who the Devil, it seems, had some particular pique at, and set all his stratagems at work to ruin her, both soul and body. He attacked her in a hundred several ways in covert, as I may call it, that is to say, by attempts to draw her into crime, alluring her, and laying snares for her of several kinds. But when he found himself steadily resisted by the lady's resolved virtue, modesty, and temperance, he attacked her in person with frightful apparitions, assuming ugly and terrible shapes; and once appearing all in fire, with a frightful threatening voice, he told her he was come to fetch her away: the lady had a secret spirit of courage and resolution came upon her at the very moment, and, as we say in

« PreviousContinue »