Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe With His Vision of the Angelick World

SERIOUS REFLECTIONS DURING THE LIFE...

I seriously advise all sober-thinking persons not to disregard those powerful impulses of the mind in things otherwise indifferent or doubtful, but believe them to be whispers from some kind spirit, which sees something that we cannot see, and knows something that we cannot know.

Besides, unless infinite Power should take off the silence that is imposed upon the inhabitants of the invisible world, and allow them to speak audibly, nothing can be a plainer voice; they are words spoken to the mind, though not to the ear, and they are a certain intelligence of things unseen, because they are given by persons unseen, and the event confirms it beyond all dispute.

I know a man who made it his rule always to obey these silent hints, and he has often declared to me that when he obeyed them he never miscarried; and if he neglected them, or went on contrary to them, he never succeeded; and gave me a particular case of his own, among a great many others, wherein he was thus directed. He had a particular case befallen him, wherein he was under the displeasure of the Government, and was prosecuted for a misdemeanour, and brought to a trial in the King’s Bench Court, where a verdict was brought against him, and he was cast; and times running very hard at that time against the party he was of, he was afraid to stand the hazard of a sentence, and absconded, taking care to make due provision for his bai1, and to pay them whatever they might suffer. In this circumstance he was in very great distress, and no way presented unto him but to fly out of the kingdom, which, be-

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ing to leave his family, children, and employment, was very bitter to him, and he knew not what to do; all his friends advising him not to put himself into the hands of the law, which, though the offence was not capital, yet, in his circumstances, seemed to threate his utter ruin. In this extremity he felt one morning — just as he awaked, and the thoughts of his misfortune began to return upon him — I say, he felt a strong impulse darting into his mind thus, Write a letter to them. It spoke so distinctly to him, and as it were forcibly, that, as he has often said since, he can scarce persuade himself not to believe but that he heard it; but he grants that he really did not hear it too.

However, it repeated the words daily and hourly to him, till at length, walking about in his chamber, where he was hidden, very pensive and sad, it jogged him again, and he answered aloud to it, as if it had been a voice, Who shall I write to? It returned immediately, Write to the judge. This pursued him again for several days, till at length he took his pen, ink, and paper, and sat down to write, but knew not one word of what he should say; but, dabitur in hac hora, he wanted not words. It was immediately impressed on his mind, and the words flowed upon his pen in a manner that even charmed himself, and filled him with expectations of success.

The letter was so strenuous in argument, so pathetic in its eloquence, and so moving and persuasive, that as soon as the judge read it he sent him word he should be easy, for he would endeavour to make that matter light to him; and, in a word,

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never left till he obtained to stop prosecution, and restore him to his liberty and to his family.

These hints, I say, are of a nature too significant to be neglected; whence they come is the next inquiry. I answer, they are the whispers of some subsisting spirit communicated to the soul without the help of the organ, without the assistance of a particular sound, and without any other communication; but, take it as you go, not without the merciful disposition of that Power that governs that world, as well as this that we are sensible of. How near those spirits are to us, who thus foresee what concerns us, and how they convey these hints into our minds as well waking as sleeping, or how they are directed, that I could not discover, nor can yet resolve, no, not in the highest of my imaginary elevation, any more than in what manner they are limited and restrained.

I have been asked by some, to whom I have talked freely of my frequent applications to these things, if I knew anything by those observations of the manner of the disposition of the human soul after its departure out of the body, I mean, as to its middle state, and whether, as some, it has a wandering existence in the upper part of the waste or abyss near to, but not in, a present state of felicity? Whether it is still confined within the atmosphere of the earth, according to others, as in a limbus, or purgatory; or in the circle of the sun, as others say? Whether I knew or perceived anything of our Saviour’s being ascended into the body of the sun only, and not into the highest heaven, receiving His redeemed souls to Himself, and into an incorporation with His glory there, till the restitution

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of all things? Whether I perceived anything of Satan being possessed of the reprobate souls as they departed; and of his substitutes, as executioners, being empowered and employed to torment them according to the received notions of the wise contemplators of such things?

I answered, as I do now, that not only nothing of all this appears, but, on the contrary, such serious contemplations as mine give a great and abundant reason to be satisfied that there is nothing in it all but mere dream and enthusiastic conjecture, I own that the agents I mentioned make use of all those things to terrify and affright poor ignorant people out of their senses, and to drive them often into desperation, and after to restore them by a cure that is worse than the distemper, namely, by a hardness and coldness of temper, rejecting entirely all the notions of eternity and futurity, and so fitting them to go out of the world as they lived in it, viz., without troubling themselves with what is to come after it.

But I return to the article of impulses of the mind, for I lay a greater weight upon these than upon any of the other discoveries of the invisible world, because they have something in them relating to what we are about, something directing, something to guide us in avoiding the evils that attend us, and to accepting, or rather embracing, opportunities of doing ourselves good when they present, which many times, for want of the knowledge of our way, we irrecoverably let slip.

Voices, apparitions, noises, and all the other affrighting things which unavoidably follow the neighbourhood of spir-

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its in the air we breathe in, seem to have much less signification, as to us, than these seasonable kind whispers to our souls, which, it is plain, are directed for the advantage of life.

It seems hard that mankind should be so open to the secret insinuators, the whispering devils I have been speaking of, who are night and day, sleeping and waking, working upon his senses by the arts and subtleties of hell, to fill his imagination with a thousand devilish contrivances to gratify his vanity and lust; and that our thoughts should be always ready to receive the impressions they make, pressed to follow the infernal counsel, be awake to listen to all his directions, but should be deaf to the instructions of any kind spirits that would influence us for our advantage, and insensible to those impressions which are made upon us for our immediate good by an agent good in itself, and acting from a principle, whatever it be, of good to us.

We have a foolish saying, though taken from something that is more significant than we imagine, when any danger has surprised us — Well, my mind misgave me when I was going about it; well, I knew some mischief would come of it. Did you so? And why then did you do it? Why did you go on? Why, when your mind misgave you, did you not obey the friendly caution? Whence do you think your mind received the speaking, though silent impression? Why did you not listen to it as to a voice? For such a one it was, no doubt; and let all those unthinking people who go on in anything they are upon, contrary to those secret, silent impressions upon their minds, I say, let them know and observe it, they will very seldom fail of meeting some mischief

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in the way. They will very seldom fail of miscarrying in the way. I say very seldom, because I would not take upon me to prescribe things positively, which the reader will take me up short in, and say, how do I know it? But I will take the liberty to say, I durst be positive in it, relating to myself, and I durst be positive from the nature and reason of the thing.

As to my own experience, I waive saying much of it, but that in general I never slighted these impulses but to my great misfortune; I never listened to and obeyed them, but to my great advantage; but I choose to argue from the reason of them, rather than from my own experience.

As they are evident warnings of what is to come, and are testified daily and hourly by the things coming to pass afterwards, so they are undeniable testimonies that they proceed from some being, intelligent of those things that are at hand, while they are yet to come. If, then, I am satisfied that it is a notice given from a something, be it what it will, which is fully informed of what is attending me, though concealed from me, why should I slight the hint given me from anything that knows what I know not, and especially, for example, for avoiding evils to come?

I know a person, who had so strong an impression upon her mind that the house she was in would be burnt that very night, that she could not go to sleep; the impulse she had upon her mind pressed her not to go to bed, which, however, she resisted and went to bed, but was so terrified with the thought,

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which, as she called it, run in her mind, that the house would be burnt, that she could not go to sleep.

She had made so much discovery of her apprehensions in the family, that they were all in a fright, and applied themselves to search from the top of the house to the bottom, and to see every fire and every candle safe out, so that, as they all said, it was impossible anything could happen in the house, and they sent to the neighbours on both sides to do the like. Thus far they did well, but had she obeyed the hint, which pressed upon her strangely not to go to bed, she had done much better, for the fire was actually kindled at that very time, though not broken out.

In about an hour after the whole family was in bed, the house just over the way, directly opposite, was all in a flame, and the wind, which was very high, blowing the flame upon the house this gentlewoman lived in, so filled it with smoke and fire in a few moments, the street being narrow, that they had not air to breathe, or time to do anything but jump out of their beds and save their lives. Had she obeyed the hint given, and not gone to bed, she might have saved several things of value which she lost; but as she neglected that, and would go to bed, the moments she had spared to her were but just sufficient to get out of bed, get some clothes on, and get downstairs, for the house was on fire in half a quarter of an hour.

It might be asked here, why could not the same kind spirit have intimated by the same whispers where the danger lay,

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and from what quarter it was to be expected; in what manner the fire would attack them, and that it would come from the other side of the street, the wind blowing it directly upon them?

To this I answer, that it is our business the more vigilantly to observe and listen to the hints which are given, seeing the intimations are not so particular as we might wish, without inquiring into the reasons why they are given no plainer. We have a great deal of reason to believe the kind spirit that gives these intimations and whispers thus to us, gives us all the light it is permitted to give, and whispers as much, either as it knows, or as it is allowed to communicate; otherwise, why does it give any intimations at all? But, on the other hand, it may be alleged that enough is intimated to suffice for our safety, if we will obey the intimation; and it would be a much more reasonable question to ask why we slight and disobey the impression that we acknowledge to have received, rather than why the intimation was no plainer.

A person of my acquaintance being to go to New England by sea, two ships presented, and the masters earnestly solicited to take him as a passenger; he asked my advice, professing that as well the ships as the captains were perfectly indifferent to him, both the men being equally agreeable to him, and the vessels equally good. I had my eye upon this notion of impulses, and pressed upon him to observe strictly if he had not some secret motion of his mind to one ship rather than another, and he said he had not.

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After some time he accidentally met one of the captains, and falling into terms with him, agreed for his passage, and accordingly prepared to go on board; but from the very time that he made the agreement, nay, even while he was making the bargain, he had a strong impression on his mind that he should not go in that ship.

It was some days after this that he told me of these impressions, which increased on him every day; upon which I pressed him earnestly not to go, but to take passage with the other. After he had resolved upon this, he came to me, and told me, that he had with some difficulty and some loss put off the first ship, but now he had the same, or rather stronger aversion to going in the second ship, and had a strong impression on his mind that if he went in the second ship he should be drowned. I bid him consider it a little, and tell me if be had any further intimations of it; and he continued to tell me that he had no rest about his going in either of those ships, and yet his affairs lay so that he was under a necessity of going, and there was no other ship put up upon the Exchange for going.

I pressed him, however, not to venture by any means; I convinced him that those impulses of his mind were the whispers of some kind spirit, that saw things farther than he could, and were certainly given him as cautions to save him from some mischief which he might not forsee; I that it could be no evil spirit, because the keeping him back could be no injury to him of such a nature as would gratify the devil in any part of his usual desires; it must therefore be something for his good, and

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he ought to be very cautious how he slighted the silent admonition. In a word, I prepossessed him so much in aid of the secret impulses of his own mind, that he resolved not to go that year, and he saw clearly afterwards that the secret intimation was from a good hand, for both the ships miscarried; the first being taken by the Turks, and the latter cast away and all the men lost, the ship foundering at sea, as was supposed, for she was never heard of.

I could fill this tract with accounts of this nature, but the reason of the case is stronger than the example; for as it is an intimation of something future, and that it to come to pass, it is certain there is a state in which what is future and must come to pass is known, and why should we not believe the news, if it comes from the place where the certainty of it is known?

Some give all this to a prescience peculiar to the soul itself, and of kin to that we call the second sight; but I see no ground for this but mere presumption. Others call it an afflatus, which they think is a distemper of the brain. Others call it a sympathetic power in the soul, foreboding its own disasters. But all this is short of the thing, for here is not a foreboding only, which indeed is often felt, but is expressed another way; but here is a direct intelligence, a plain intimation of the evil, and warning to avoid it: this must be more than an afflatus, more than a sympathy; this must be from a certain knowledge of a thing that exists not, by a something that does exist; and must be communicated by a converse of spirits unembodied, with

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