reason that they both drew their first parentage from a Worme And thus hee sought creepingly amongst the Wormes for what hee could not finde though very neere him In like manner he played with the Immortality of the soule It pleased him and it displeased him He tooke it and he threw it off againe And he was more willing in the end to disclaime it then owne it And the flowings and ebbings of his owne braine had he studied inward might have urged him to a greater confusion of thoughts and more trouble of minde then Euripus in which Saint Gregorie Nazienzen teacheth he Greg. Naz. orat 3. in Julian drowned himselfe And this weake light or dawning of the day was truely most sutable and more then most agreeable with beginners CHAP. VIII SInne being now more strong more witty and more various and Nature being sufficiently informed of her owne weaknesse God sent the world letters from Heaven De illa eivitate unde peregrinamur S. Aug. con 2. in Psal 90. saith Saint Austin hae literae nobis venerunt these letters came from the great Imperiall City from which we travell And Moses the Messenger that brought these letters of so great importance frō God to the world delivered his message with caution and with respect to the Jewes hardnesse as it is cleerely gathered out of the words in which Christ arguing with the Pharisees concerning the permissive Law of Divorcement saith Moses because of the hardnesse of your hearts suffered you to put away your Mat. 19. 8. wives but from the beginning it was not so And so he corrected the Law in conformity to a more perfect condition And therefore the Greeke Church with us doth onely breake Matrimony in the case of Adultery in which point Eugenius the fourth laboured to reconcile her with the Church of Rome at Florence but he could not And even in the old dayes of the old Law God altered the phrase of his proceedings with correspondence to the person with whom he dealt and with whom he was to deale For the old Law being a Law of feare a Law of bondage and a maine difference betwixt the old Law and the new being as Saint Austin giveth it Aug. l. octoginta trium quaest tom 4. Timor Amor Feare and Love conversing now with the Synagogue a servant a bond-woman he stiles himselfe God the Lord Jehovah Mighty Terrible Yet meditating upon the new Law being a Law of Grace and liberty and turning to the sweete Spouse in the Canticles to which Law she did indeed most properly belong he doth as it were cover his greatnesse hide his beames and draw a great vaile over his Majesty For he cals himselfe a Bridegroome a friend a lover And in the whole book of Canticles we cannot finde with both our eyes one proper name of God not one of the tenne great names of God which are so easie to be found in the old Testament and which Saint Hierome doth briefely explicate in his learned Epistle to Marcella God will not be knowne to S. Hier. Ep. ad Marcel his bashfull and tender Spouse by the names which move terrour and affrightment For he would not as a man may say for all the world trouble or fright his pretty maiden Spouse And uses onely the titles which kindle and cherish love CHAP. IX ALl this while there occurred as well in the booke of Creatures as in the love-letters from the Creatour many faire and solid emblems of a Divine providence goodnesse wisedome mercie justice and so forth And before this man might already learne sufficiently that there was one God even in the Manuscript of Creatures by turning before his lesson from cause to cause till he came to the first cause from motion to motion till he came to the first Mover But the capacity of the childish young world was yet too meane too shallow to receive in plaine language the mysterious doctrine of a Trinity the heart of man being as it were not yet altogether unfolded not perfectly open'd into a Triangle Nor did ever any spirituall Traveller to this day meete with the perfect likenesse of the blessed Trinity in Creatures For there is no principle in naturall knowledge no foot-step of God in Creatures by the direction of which any created understanding either Humane or Angelicall may reasonably close with the assent or opinion or even suspition of the blessed Trinity or which can give us any true notice that it is possible For although the Understanding Will and Memory of man in which as in the most during part Gods image consisteth are three faculties and one soule yet they fall under being one and three after the manner as God is three and one nor is there such a difference in the faculties as distinction in the Persons And if you distinguish the faculties really with the Thomists the Persons will not be so really distinguished and yet they will be truely distinguished one from another besides that every one will be the same in Essence and the whole Essence If the learned urge that the soundest part of the heathen writers speake honourably of the blessed Trinity as Mercurius therefore called though some thinke otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orpheus and that Plato speaks high things of the word divine love and other Platonists out of whose books S. Austin reporteth that he gathered these jewels this golden chaine of holy Scripture In principio erat verbum verbum S. Aug. l. 7 confess c. 9. Io. 1. 1. erat apud Deum Deus erat verbum In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God As if the Eagle had not taken it in a high flight from the holy Ghost but stooped to them for it I answer these Philosophers sucked the sweets of knowledge they had in this kind out of the Scripture And Clemens Alexandrinus Clem. Alex l. 1 Siromatum maketh mention of a certaine old Greeke edition of the old Testament before that of the Septuagint which came to the hands of Plato and of other Philosophers And also these Philosophers as it is abundantly manifest in Saint Justine travelled all into Egypt to better their S. Just paranesi sive cohort ad Gracos knowledge where the Jewes in their servitude had left many visible footsteps of heavenly learning Yet where they speake of the word and so plainely of the blessed Trinity they received their knowledge in the same strange manner as the Sibyls and they spoke as Plato said of the Sibyls many brave matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not Plat. apud Just in paranesi reaching to the deepe and genuine sense of any word they said and the spirit failing not being able to recover the least representation of what they had said And truely Theodor. lib. 2. apud Gracos Theodoret gives a most exquisite reason why God was not willing to deliver the knowledge of the blessed Trinity
mee in my own Parish and within my owne small fold Are they not unsufferably bold when a Priest came to my Lodging and there in his fury attempted to draw a sword upon me If you graciously assist me not I have bin saved abroad to perish at home with all my friends about me or at least to lie buried in secrecie and contempt Pardon me if I am hot I have bin hitherto chill and lukewarmnesse is highly blameable I have bin wrought upon through all my life and bowed to serve other mens ends And have ignorantly suffered my selfe to be moved and fashioned in order to them But now the vizard is off I will throw them off one here and one there and only serve God who is my true end It is remarkable that the Papists turn our lenity and gentlenesse towards them into an argument against us inferring that wee have no zeale no religion O consider the flocks and multitudes of ignorant people that came to me when I lodged in London crying for satisfaction in matters of beliefe Every one of them being divided betwixt a Protestant and a Papist not knowing where to finde rest for their souls And some came under my hands whom the papists by their continual perswasions had wrought into a distraction some into madnes This others know with mee God will require an account of these souls O that it were granted to mee but first to the glory of God that while I have leave to behold this good light both of the Sun and of the Gospell I might speake in the light as our Saviour commands us what I have heard in darknesse and that I might be always at hand to binde up the gaping wounds of afflicted spirits even where they are most wounded because there are most Enemies Neither do men saith Mat. 5. 15. our Saviour light a candle and put it under a bushell but on a candlestick and it giveth light to all that are in the House The Candlestick is the place of the candle be it small or great Shall the zeale of the true Church be overcome in religious forwardnesse by a false one It is not all my purpose to labour in the prevention of Popery Part of it is to teach plainly and truly the Faith professed in England and the piety of a Christian life even to the perfection of it as will appeare to the Reader It is our Saviours Rule commended to Saint Peter When thou art converted Luk. 22. 32. strengthen thy Brethren God hath abundantly performed his part towards mee the performance of my part remaineth towards him and my Brethren And no zeale is like to zelus animarum the zeal of souls It somewhat suits which the Bridegroom said to the Spouse My Cant. 2. 10 11 12 13. beloved spake and said unto mee Rise up my love my faire one and come away For loe the winter is past the rain is over and gone The flowers appeare on the earth the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the Turtle is heard in our land The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell Arise my love my faire one and come away When God calls who loves because he will love and therefore says first My Love and then my faire one and he first loves because we are not faire but by his love And he seems to love without reason and to do what hee does as women doe because he will doe it but it is the greatest of all reasons that his will should be done And this is confessed by the Schoolmen in the resolution of other great difficulties and when hee cals so movingly and so prettily it is high time to goe But before I go I beg of all the zealous and noble spirits included in my Dedication that they will so farre listen after me and remember Gods worke in me as to take notice and observe what becomes of me And so God that in his good time hath remembred you and us remember both you and us all in the end and world without end Which humbly prays Your humble servant Richard Carpenter EXPERIENCE HISTORY and DIVINITY The first Booke CHAP. 1. Let not my Reader reject many easie things being joined with a few that are not so easie because in the best book the Elephant swimmeth and the Lambe wadeth THe Divines authorized by Saint John in the beginning of his Gospell whom therfore Gregory the Great calls Evangelistarum Aquilam the Eagle of the Evangelists beginning their discourses of Christ with his eternall Generation stile him the word The Reason is reason Because as verbum mentis the word of the Mind even after it cometh of the minde doth still notwithstanding remaine in it the word of the Tongue perishing with the sound So the Son of God comming of his Father by a most ineffable yet most true Generation receiveth a personall distinction and yet remaineth with and in his Father by a most unseperable Unity of Essence This blessed word I call to witnesse before whom wee shall answere for every idle word that my words heere in the matters of Experience and History are so farre agreeable to the Divine word that they are true which is the first excellencie of words as they are words The matters of Divinity will stand by themselves I have read in the Schoolmen that Omne verum est à Spiritu Sancto Every Truth comes from the Holy Ghost I will bee sure to tell truth and upon this ground truth being told every man may be sure from whom it comes fix upon it in the deduction of the Conclusions it virtually containeth as upon the firm Principles of a Science I am not ignorant that sometimes it is a sin to speak truth because there may be a falshood committed though not spoken as a false breach of true Charity which many times obligeth to secrecie And these times the speaking of truth is indeed a lie because such a sin and against God who is Truth even as he is Truth But I know it for a Maxime Against a publique enemie of the Church of God we may lawfully and religiously speak all Truths It is a rule amongst Casuists Certa pro certis habenda dubia ut dubia sunt proponenda in a Relation certain things are to be proposed as things certain and doubtfull as doubtfull Let no man doubt but I will certainly dresse every thing in cloathes according to its degree Hence followes a lesson and it falles within my lesson God was in all eternity till the beginning of the World and but one word came from him and that a good one as good as himselfe and not spoken but as it were onely conceived Words are not to bee thought rashly and if not to bee thought not to he spoken because we think not in the sight of our neighbours but we speak in the hearing of our neighbours and if not to
Timothie One Mediatour 1 Tim. 2. 5. both for the maine matter of reconciliation and the continuance of it It is added the man Christ Iesus that we may goe boldly to him we men to the man Christ Jesus It cannot be denied but hee sits at the right hand of God and makes intercession for us and if so why should any be joyned with him in maintaining the continuance of the league betwixt God and man which he made I meane any that we must looke up to and that shall deal the same businesse in the same place and with more assurance of reconcilement then he The Minister is a Mediatour betwixt God and Man but not one that is invisible and above as God is Certainly God could have given his blessings without the motion of prayer but the device was to exercise us in humility and obedience towards him us here below and in the performance of charitable offices towards our neighbours for our greater advancement hereafter And should it be freely given to them to the Papists that the Saints expresse their charity to us in praying for us it will not presently follow that we must be Petitioners to them For they may pray for us that is for the atchievement of our last end and yet not know the particularities of our conditions and not be able to heare our prayers It is a great way to the place where the Saints dwell and we pray softly And therefore God heareth us because he is every where Intra omnia sed non inclusus extra omnia sed non exclusus saith Isidorus within all Isid things but not shut in them without all things but not shut out of them And although the Saints should behold in the vision of God in whom are all things what we doe and pray for yet still they are finite and their powers limited And if the whole world should pray to a Saint at the same time it would be a great imployment to give hearing to all the multitude He that sees him who sees all things sees but a little of what hee sees that sees all things And the blessednes of the seers doth not so much as partially consist in the seeing of what is done below And that God imparteth to them any such revelations by which they may appeare to us so like to him wee are not warranted to beleeve I rather think that the wills of the Saints and Angels in Heaven lye fast asleepe in the will of God No Saint would grieve for his Father though he should know he is now broiling in the most searching flames of eternall fire because his will is wholly resigned to the first and superiour will in the order of wills the will of God He grieves not for him because the sentence of God hath past upon him and the sentence is irrecoverable because it is absolutely will'd And who can make it credible that the Saints know what sentences are past and what are yet to passe I was borne a poore beggar When I could not begg and I live a beggar and shall dye one My cry shall ever be Good Master my Master and Master of all the world give somewhat to a poore beggar for Jesus Christ his sake CHAP. 5. I Blame exceedingly in the Jesuits and others their neglect of holy Scripture An old man amongst them and a profound Scholler said in a vaunting way that hee had never read a word of holy Scripture in holy Scripture but as he found it scattered and cited in other books And when I made a Latin Play amongst them and God in his tendernesse forgive me for it acted the part of a Minister and preached upon the Stage having took for my text those holy words of Christ to St. Thomas Blessed are they that John 20. 29 have not seene and yet have beleeved Moving excessive laughter at every word I was not reprehended by them but highly commended And in Rome when I composed a Play of a mixture of English and Latin and still personated a Minister though I much profaned the words and phrases of holy Scripture all past for very well done Nothing almost is more common with the Italians then to frame their jests of the phrases or passages of holy Scripture which because they are witty please and spread exceedingly It is worthy to be learned that as in all subordinate Sciences they so contrive the states and resolutions of their questions that they may serve the better to the setling of their Doctrine in Divinity so they have the like ayme even in their ordinary carriages if the carriage be capable of it And running with this by as they neglect even outwardly holy Scripture that in Divinity they may the more seemingly inferre the insufficiencie of it in the decision of Controversies forming an argument out of their owne practice with which argument though no argument they are patiently convinced to whom their practice is a Canon and indeed holy Scripture it selfe There came to this Colledge when I was there a poore old for lorne Spanish Souldier and his arrant was to begg an almes This is ordinary and wherefore should I relate it The extraordinary is to come He confessed weeping to some of the Schollers that he had beene a busie man in the great Fleet that came for England in Queen Elizabeths dayes and that the heavy hand of God had so waighed him downe in all his enterprises since the foule attempt of that mischievous Plot that he could never prosper in his common affaires nor yet see any man who had engaged his person in that businesse that prospered I may ad out of his words that seemed not to beare with Caine or like a wandering Jew the curse of God upon his forehead O all yee true English hearts love God and serve him The Jesuits perhaps will deny they had any hand in that Invasion But lest they deceive you I will tell you some news from Rome It is known there that the Pope tooke and the Jesuits gave the better halfe of the Colledgemeanes sold out-right to the use of that Fleet And that the Scholers were over-thrown with the Navy For the number of Scholers being great and now greatly neglected part of them by the fearfull judgement of God were forced to beg from Town to Town And I have heard of a great Extremitie into which some of them fell but the form of it is quite falne out of my mind Still praise thou God ô my soul I have read a Latin book in Rome written by Father Parsons the Jesuite that I told you sate in the Coblers stall after Gods expression to us in the overthrow of the Fleet where he labours to reduce that overthrow as Fa. Floyd the Jesuit did the fal of the house in Black-friars not to an act of Gods good pleasure but of his sufferance where with many arguments he encourageth all Catholike Princes to the like attempt where he confesseth that the Spanish ships
certainly they worship they know not what And it is a fearefull thing to draw the chiefe and most noble acts of Religion within the lists of such notable danger And the law of not administring the Sacrament in both kinds being one of the young handmaids which wait upon this doctrine took earnest first in the Councell of Constance And Pope Gelasius cursed all those who presumed to maime the divine ordinance and to receive it onely in one kinde And Transubstantiation the other feat waighting-maid was hired in the Councell of Lateran By little and little it was made a most huge Monster The bramble groweth but who can say now look you even now it encreaseth though hee may say it hath encreased since I saw it last CHAP. 11. ONe passage more from Spaine and then I my selfe passe from it that I may leave something to come by the next Post if they stirre mee farther By great chance there came to my hands a Booke called Regulae Societatis Iesu The Rules of the Jesuits which Booke they have not formerly suffered to be printed but onely in the Jesuits Colledge at Rome And this Book their Superiours alone make use of and are permitted to have It containeth in part a strange kinde of direction how to square and fashion their Novices in the time of their two yeares Noviship and especially how to sift them and search into their lifes and natures at their first entrance The quick and angry disposition most pleases them because in persons owing such dispositions all the passions are more lively and stirring How also to dispose of their young-men in the divers wayes of their naturall inclinations and how to deale with them according to their severall tempers and chiefely if they begin to look another way and to lean from them And how when they send Letters from house to house to mark them with private stamps in the inside lest the character going alone should bee counterfeit with many more cunning pleats of Jesuiticall government And it is one of their daily brags that they live under Rule we without Rule But were their Rules seasoned with more Christianity and lesse policie they would be more Christian My Reader shall have his Rules likewise and live under them if he please Thus much before I begin It is not obscure to mee that these irreligious orders of Religion fit and prepare their young subjects in their Noviships by turning and twining their wills with the sight of strange pictures and with the manifold acts of blind obedience for great businesse hereafter perhaps for the killing of Kings The Doway-Monk gave Pius quintus in my presence no better name then old doting Foole because he called in the Bull which he had published against Queen Elizabeth wherein notwithstanding hee did absolve her subjects from their Oath of Allegeance and from all obedience to her and expresly commanded them to take Arms against her RULE 1. LEt your understanding which is the first and superiour faculty of your soul stand not under but over all your other faculties and take a survay of your Nature And not this onely but also learne exactly the maine course and moreover the divers turnings of your owne secret disposition For knowing perfectly our owne natures wee can best direct them a proper way to God And the man that perceiveth himselfe to be jealous or angry or otherwise deficient by nature will upon occasion more easily suspect an errour in himselfe then in others and consequently discover acknowledge and suppresse with all readinesse the tumults of Passion and indeed will be more sound and able in the managing of all his affaires as well temporall as spirituall Every man is composed of a man and a beast and the beast is given to the man to be tamed and governed by him He that desireth to tame a beast desireth also chiefly to know the secrets of his nature and all the queint tricks of his inclination This distinction in man of man from himselfe riseth from the two parts or portions of the reasonable soule the intellectuall or superiour part and the inferiour otherwise called the sensuall part which though it may be said if you will say so a part of the reasonable soule while it continueth in the body is void of reason and it is hard to direct one void of reason This is all Be Master of your selfe The wise Master will know and by his knowledge governe RULE 2. ROot evill Habits out of your Soule and plant their contraries Decline from evill and doe good sayes the Royall Prophet For as a habit is gained and Psal 34. 14. strengthened by a frequent repetition and multiplication of Acts which are of the same stampe and colour with the habit as a habit of swearing is gained and strengthened by swearing often so it is abated by disturbing and abolished by destroying the course of such acts as a habit of swearing is abated and abolished by him that having often sworne now seldome or never sweareth It is not one or a few acts which generate a habit nor a small cessation from them which utterly corrupts it And therefore Children entring upon the first yeare of knowledge and discretion plant vertuous habits with great ease in their souls and with much more facilitie then people whose yeeres and sinnes are many though much enabled with knowledge wisdome and experience The Reason is open They are like faire paper ready to take any inscription these have much weedingworke before they can turn to a new Plantation Here I beseech thee learne to remember thy Creatour in the days of thy youth Eccl. 12. 1. It was a Law in the days of old that Manna should be gathered in the morning And the rich orient Pearle is begot of the morning dew God requireth of you the sweetnesse of the morning the breake of the day and the dawning of your life Note that we may sin grievously put on by custome though suddenly rashly and without reflexion because wee have not abandoned the custome and certain danger of sinning RULE 3. BEcause nothing can possibly stand without a Foundation the Foundation of the spirituall edifice and Temple of God in your soule can be no other but Humilitie Humilitie lyeth very low And the deeper the Foundation is laid the more strong will be the building and more able to beare the injuries of Time assaults of the weather And this as all other Foundations must be laid in the ground in a deep and profound consideration that you are all earth on the one side and on the other side all filth all barrennesse according to that of the Prophet Esay Wee are all as an unclean thing Esay 64. 6. and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags Rags are of small use in themselves but filthy rags are abominable It little mattereth in whose name hee speaketh these words for every man may fit them to himselfe And according to that of our deare Saviour
and bodies should wait upon God But the Lyce were not the onely biters in the Friery And here my Reader shall understand what religious hearts these religious persons that compose the monster of Rome beare one towards another For the Monke by whom I was directed in the Monastery is now in the Friery another man and confessed to be all knit together of craft and a great student in the art of policy and over-reaching And the Jesuits had their load too as may appeare by this story which a superiour amongst the Friers told me A certaine Frier of their coate and company comming to speake with a Jesuite at his chamber in London found him earnest in his study behinde a curtaine After the discussion of their businesse the Jesuit stepped hastily downe to give order concerning the entertainment of his friend And in the interim the Frier looked behinde the the curtaine and found before his chair a written book The title of the Chapter which then lay open was By what motives to stirre a widow or other free person to give her estate into the hands of the Church and how afterwards to dispose of her The Frier by whom I was informed named to me a principall man of his Order who then had one of these bookes lying by him Whatsoever the Scribes and Pharises practised I doe not read that they commended the art of devouring widowes houses to writing for the information of their posterity The fortune of the booke as it was related to me is this The Jesuits dare not print it lest it should at any time slip besides their hands into the world And the Jesuits that are sober natur'd and seriously given are never suffered to heare of this booke it is onely permitted to practicall men and at such a time after their entrance into the Order but not before I had formerly heard of this booke and that it was full of damnable conveyances My Reader may see with halfe an eye that I relate things briefely and plainely and that I build upon the testimonies which they give one of another being a sure way The learning of bookes plowes not halfe so deepe Another Frier struck both the Jesuits and the Monks in one turning of his tongue with these words The Jesuits are the daily plotters and actours of businesses which we can never answer And were not the Monks ashamed to give out the other day that a mad man of their Order wrought miracles These Friers have a sleight by which they confirme their young ones They have printed under a picture of Saint Francis Saint Francis obtained of God by his prayers that whosoever dieth in his Order and hath the benefit of confession shall infallibly goe to Heaven The Monks have made the like promise under the picture of Saint Benet But let them unloose this knot without cutting it If their confession come from a penitent heart it will bring them alone to Heaven in the opinion of the Romanists if it come not from such a bruised heart Heaven is denyed to it by all their Doctors The Jesuits are a little more solid They have a picture wherein are printed at large the Prophecies of many Jewish Rabbines foretelling that God would send a religious and learned company of men into the World in the decaying and old age of it as I imagine for the elects sake Now I began to turne my thoughts a seeking againe because I had not yet found what I looked for And therefore I pretended the want of health and loth to continue a begging Frier upon these tearmes freely begged leave to depart CHAP. VII I Was now even cloyed and surfeited with these vanities And I meditated upon a conversion to the Church of England But although I staggered having drunke deepe of the poysoned Cups of Babylon yet my whole heart was never converted neither did I ever apply my selfe with an open profession to the Church of England before this happy time And still my heart gaped for more knowledge of their wayes Wherefore I was commended to an uncloister'd Monk in Paris with whom I lived a while as a stranger and enjoyed the great benefit of a faire Library This Monk communicated with the Church of Rome but inclined very much to the Greeke Church Yet his two Monks for they were all his family inclined every way as they went being seldome sober In Paris I found the fault of Doway that many schollers lived by theft and that men threw themselves into danger of their lives who stirred abroad in the black of night as well neare the Colledges as elsewhere These are not good orders of Universities neither is this a promising and hopefull education of Priests In this Towne I lay at watch for a better occasion You shall have more hereafter Now onely one farewell to the Friers They have many Rules of a stange out-landish nature and condition He that will be rul'd by reason may judge of this Rule A Frier is licensed by his Rule to touch and receive money with his Garment his sleeve or the lappet of his coate but not with his hand He is utterly forbid to touch it with any part of his flesh I see there may be an equivocation committed as well in manners as in words And I saw this Rule kept by a Frier who received a French crowne into a paper In the defiance of this and all other Rules of the like profession I give to him who is pleased to take with his bare hand and heart Rules directory in a Christian life and founded either in themselves or in their grounds upon the received principles of Gods holy word Rule 1. REmember alwayes that God is alwayes with you about you in you and in every part of you and of all his creatures and that when you goe from one place to another you leave God behinde you and yet he goes with you and yet you finde him where you come because he was there before you came And that although not alwayes the same yet some Angels and Devils are alwayes by you watching over you and carefully observing your behaviour yea and oftentimes beholding your heart in outward actions And let your thoughts and tongue bee alwayes running and repeating Shall I commit an act of high treason against so great a King so just and severe a Judge so good so pure a God and in his presence It is he whom Joseph meant when hee said How can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God How sweet is God that sendeth his first and most perfect creatures his holy Angels downe from Heaven with an injunction of stooping and attending to the meane and homely affaires of men The Angels are daily conversant with us and yet are never discharged from the glorious vision of God to whom they are united being present with them wheresoever they are such a pretious mixture and composition of good things ought the life of man to be it must be compounded