For there are many
kinds, of which it would be too long to talk now. But I say that
God doth certainly send some such to a man in some thing, or may.
VINCENT: Yet then this religious man of whom we speak, when I show
him the scripture against his revelation and therefore call it an
illusion, may bid me with reason go mind my own affairs. For he
knoweth well and surely himself that his revelation is very good
and true and not any false illusion, since for all the general
commandment of God in the scripture, God may dispense where he will
and when he will, and may command him to do the contrary. For he
commanded Abraham to kill his own son, and Sampson had, by
inspiration of God, commandment to kill himself by pulling down the
house upon his own head at the feast of the Philistines.
Now, if I would then do as you bade me right now, tell him that
such apparitions may be illusions, and since God's word is in the
scripture against him plain for the prohibition, he must perceive
the truth of his revelation whereby I may know it is not a false
illusion; then shall he in turn bid me tell him whereby I can
prove myself to be awake and talk with him and not be asleep and
dream so, since in my dream I may as surely think so as I know
that I do so. And thus shall he drive me to the same bay to which
I would bring him.
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