when he was very violently exercis’d, all manner of sensible Objects vanish’d out of his sight, and the Imagination, and all the other Faculties which make any use of the Organs of the Body grew Weak; and on the other side, the Operations of his Essence, which depended not on the Body, grew strong, so that at sometimes his Meditation was pure and free from any Mixture, and he beheld by it the necessarily self-existent Being:  But then again the Corporeal Faculties would return upon him, and spoil his Contemplation, and bring him down to the lowest Degree where he was before.  Now, when he had any Infirmity upon him which interrupted his Design, he took some kind of Meat, but still according to the aforemention’d Rules; and then remov’d again to that State of Imitation of the Heavenly Bodies, in these three Respects which we have mention’d; and thus he continued for some time opposing his Corporeal Faculties, and they opposing him, and mutually struggling one against another, and at such times as he got the better of them; and his Thoughts were free from Mixture; he did apprehend something of the Condition of those, who have attained to the third Resemblance.

Sec. 82.  Then he began to seek after this third Assimulation, and took pains in the attaining it.  And first he consider’d the Attributes of the necessarily self-existent Being.  Now it had appear’d to him, during the time of his Theoretical Speculation, before he enter’d upon the Practical Part; that there were two Sorts of them, viz.  Affirmative, as Knowledge, Power and Wisdom &c. and Negative, as Immateriality; not only such as consisted in the not being Body; but in being altogether remov’d from any thing that had the least Relation to Body, though at never so great a Distance.  And that this was a Condition, not only requir’d in the Negative Attributes, but in the Affirmative too, viz. that they should be free from all Properties of Body, of which, Multiplicity is one.  Now the Divine Essence is not multiplied by these Affirmative Attributes, but all of ’em together are one and the same thing, viz. his real Essence.  Then he began to consider how he might imitate him in both these Kinds; and as for the Affirmative Attributes, when he consider’d that they were nothing else but his real Essence, and that by no means it could be said of them that they are many(because Multiplicity is a Property of Body) and that the Knowledge of his own Essence was not a Notion superadded to his Essence, but that his Essence was the Knowledge of his Essence; and so vice versa, it appear’d to him, that if he would know his Being, this Knowledge, by which he knew his Being would not be a Notion superadded to his Being, but be the very Being itself.  And he perceived that his way to make himself like to him, as to what concern’d his Affirmative Attributes, would be to know him alone, abstracted wholly from all Properties of Body.