when it was for a plague to Egypt they were supernaturally produced Hail an ordinary meteore murrain of Cattel an ordinary disease yet for a plague to obdured Pharaoh miraculously wrought Neither need there be any great difficulty in discerning when such like events run in a natural course and when spirits are actors in them the manner of their operation the occasions and effects of them shall soon discry them to a judicious eye for when we shall finde that they do manifestly deviate from the road of nature and work above the power of secondary causes it is easie to determine them to be of an higher efficiency I could instance irrefragrably in severall tempests and thunderstorms which to the unspeakable terrour of the inhabitants were in my time seen heard felt in the Western parts wherein the translocation and transportation of huge massy stones and irons of the Churches above the possibility of naturall distance together with the strange preservation of the persons assembled with other accidents sensibly accompanying those astonishing works of God still fresh in the minds of many shewed them plainly to be wrought by a stronger hand then natures * And whither else should we ascribe many events which ignorance teacheth us to wonder at in silence If murders be descryed by the fresh bleeding of cold and almost putrefied carcasses If a man by some strong instinct be warned to change that lodging which he constantly held for some years and findes his wonted sleeping place that night crushed with the unexpected fall of an unsuspected contignation If a man distressed with care for the missing of an important evidence †such a one I have known shal be informed in his dream in what hole of his Dove-cote he shall find it hid If a man without all observation of Physical criticisms shall receive and give intelligence many dayes before what hour shal be his last to what cause can we attribute these but to our attending Angels If a man shall in his dream as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus professes receive the prescript of the remedy of his disease which the Physitians it seems could not cure whence can this be but by the suggestion of spirits And surely since I am convinced that their unfelt hands are in many occurrences of my life I have learned so much wit and grace as rather to yeeld them too much then too little stroke in ordering all my concernments O ye blessed spirits many things I know ye do for me which I discern not whiles ye do them but after they are done and many things ye may do more which I know not I blesse my God and yours as the author of all ye doe I blesse you as the means of all that is done by you for me SECT. VII The Degrees and Orders of Angels HEaven hath nothing in it but perfection but even perfection it self hath degrees as the glorified souls so the blessed Angels have their heights of excellency and glory He will be known for the God of Order observeth no doubt a most exact order in his Court of heaven nearest to the residence of his Majesty Equality hath no place either in earth or in hell we have no reason to seek it in heaven He that was rapt into the third heaven can tell us of Thrones Dominions Principalities Angels and Arch-angels in that region of blessednesse We cannot be so simple as to think these to be but one classe of spirits doubtlesse they are distinctions of divers orders But what their severall ranks offices employments are he were not more wise that could tell then he is bold that dare speak What modest indignation can forbear stamping at the presumption of those men who as if upon Domingo Gonsales his engine they had been mounted by his Gansaes from the Moon to the Empyreall heaven and admitted to be the heralds or masters of ceremonies in that higher world have taken upon them to marshall these Angelicall spirits into their severall rooms proportioning their stations dignities services according to the model of earthly Courts disposing them into Ternions of three generall Hierarchies the first relating to the immediate attendance of the Almighty the other two to the government of the Creature both generall and particular In the first of Assistents placing the Seraphim as Lords of the chamber Cherubim as Lords of the cabinet-counsel Thrones as entire Favourites in whom the Almighty placeth his rest In the second of universall Regency finding Dominions to be the great Officers of State who as Chancellours Marshals Treasurers govern the affairs of the world Mights to be the Generals of the heavenly Militia Powers as the Judges Itinerant that serve for generall retributions of good and evil In the third of speciall government placing Principalities as rulers of severall Kingdoms and Provinces Archangels as guardians to severall Cities and Countreys and lastly Angels as guardians of several persons And withall presuming to define the differences of degrees in each order above other in respect of the goodlinesse and excellency of their nature making the Arch-angels no lesse then ten times to surpasse the beauty of Angels Principalities twenty times above the Arch-angels Powers forty times more then Principalities Mights fifty more then Powers Domininions sixty above Mights Thrones seventy above Dominions Cherubim eighty above thrones Seraphim ninety times exceeding the Cherubim For me I must crave leave to wonder at this boldnesse and professe my self as far to seek whence this learning should come as how to beleeve it I do verily beleeve there are divers orders of celestial spirits I beleeve they are not to be beleeved that dare to determine them especially when I see him that was rapt into the third heaven varying the order of their places in his severall mentions of them Neither can I trust to the Revelation of that Sainted Prophetesse who hath ranged the degrees of the beatitude of glorified souls into the several chores of these heavenly Hierarchies according to their dispositions and demeanures here on earth admitting those who have been charitably helpfull to the poor sick strangers into the orb of Angels Those who have given themselves to meditation and prayer to the rank of Archangels those who have vanquished all offensive lusts in themselves to the order of Principalities to the height of Powers those whose care and vigilance hath restrained from evil and induced to good such as have been committed to their oversight and governance To the place of Mights those who for the honour of God have undauntedly and valiantly suffered and whose patience hath triumphed over evils To the company of Dominions those who prefer poverty to riches and devoutly conform their wills in all things to their Makers To the society of Thrones those who do so inure themselves to the continuall contemplation of heavenly things as that they have disposed their hearts to be a fit resting place for the Almighty To the honour of Cherubim those
suddainnesse or circumvent us with subtlety let them not spare to use their advantage But oh ye tutelar spirits ye well know our weaknesse and their strength our sillinesse and their craft their deadly machinations and our miserable obnoxiousnesse neither is your love to markinde and fidelity to your maker any whit lesse then your knowledge so as your charge can no more miscarry under your hands and eyes then your selves As you do alwayes enjoy the beatifical vision of your maker so your eye is never off from his little ones your blessednesse is no more separable from our safety then you from your blessednesse SECT. VI The imployments and operations of Angels EVen while we see you not O ye blessed spirits we know what ye do He that made you hath told us your task As there are many millions of you attending the all-glorious throne of your Creator and singing perpetual Hallelujahs to him in the highest heavens so there are innumerable numbers of you imployed in governing and ordering the creature in guarding the elect in executing the commands which ye receive from the Almighty what variety is here of your assistance One while ye lead us in our way as ye did Israel another while ye instruct us as ye did Daniel one while ye fight for us as ye did for Joshua and Judas Maccabaeus another while ye purvey for us as for Elias one while ye fit us to our holy vocation as ye did to Esay another while ye dispose of the opportunities of our calling for good as ye did of Philips to the Eunuch one while ye foretell our danger as to Lot to Joseph and Mary another while ye comfort our affliction as to Hagar one while ye oppose evil projects against us as to Balaam another while ye will be striven with for a blessing as with Jacob one while ye resist our offensive courses as to Moses another while ye incourage us in our devotions as ye did Paul and Silas and Cornelius one while ye deliver from durance as Peter another while ye preserve us from danger and death as the three children one while ye are ready to restrain our presumption as the Cherub before the gate of Paradise another while to excite our courage as to Elias and Theodosius one while to refresh and chear us in our sufferings as to the Apostles another while to prevent our sufferings as to Jacob in the pursuit of Laban and Esau to the Sages in the pursuit of Herod one while ye cure our bodies as at the pool of Bethesda another while ye carry up our souls to glory as ye did to Lazarus It were endlesse to instance in all the gracious offices which ye perform Certainly there are many thousand events wherein common eyes see nothing but nature which yet are effected by the ministration of Angels when Abraham sent his servant to procure a wife for his son from amongst his own cognation the messenger saw nothing but men like himself but Abraham saw an Angel fore-contriving the work God saith he shal send his Angel before thee that thou mayest take a wife thence when the Israelites forcibly by dint of sword expelled the Canaanites and Amorites and the other branded nations nothing appeared but their own arms but the Lord of hosts could say I will send mine Angel before thee by whom I shall drive them thence Balaam saw his Asse disorderly starting in the path he that formerly had seen Visions now sees nothing but a wall and a way but in the mean time his Asse who for the present had more of the Prophet then his Master could see an Angel and a sword The Sodomites went groping in the street for Lots door and misse it they thought of nothing but some suddain dizzinesse of brain that disappointed them we know it was an Angel that stroke them with blindenesse Nothing appeared when the Egyptian first-born were struck dead in one night the Astrologers would perhaps say they were Planet-struck we know it was done by the hand of an Angel Nothing was seen at the pool of Bethesda but a moved water when the suddain cures were wrought which perhaps might be attributed to some beneficiall constellation we know that an Angel descended and made the water thus sanative Gâ—hezi saw his master strangely preserved from the Aramite troops but had not his eyes been opened by the Prophets prayers he had not seen whence that aid came Neither is it otherwise in the frequent experiments of our life Have we been raised up from deadly sicknesses when all naturall helps have given us up Gods Angels have been our secret Physitians Have we had instinctive intimations of the death of some absent friends which no humane intelligence hath bidden us to suspect who but our Angels hath wrought it have we been preserved from mortall dangers which we could not tell how by our providence to have evaded our invisible Guardians have done it I see no reason to dislike that observation of Gerson Whence is it saith he that little children are conserved from so many perils of their infancy fire water falls suffocations but by the agency of Angels Surely where we find a probability of second causes in nature we are apt to confine our thoughts from looking higher yet even there many times are unseen hands had we seen the house fall upon the heads of Jobs children we should perhaps have attributed it to the natural force of a vehement blast when now we know it was the work of a spirit Had we seen those thousands of Israel falling dead of the plague we should have complain'd of some strange infection in the air when David saw the Angel of God acting in that mortality Humane reason is apt to be injuriously saucie in ascribing those things to an ordinary course of natural causes which the God of nature doth by supernatural agents A master of Philosophy travelling with others on the way when a fearfull thunder-storm arose checked the fear of his fellows and discoursed to them of the naturall reasons of that uprore in the clouds and those suddain flashes wherewith they seemed out of the ignorances of causes to be too much affrighted in the midst of his philosophicall discourse he was strucken dead with that dreadfull eruption which he sleighted what could this be but the finger of that God who will have his works rather entertained with wonder and trembling then with curious scanning Neither is it otherwise in those violent Huracans devouring earthquakes and more then ordinary tempests and fiery apparitions which we have seen and heard of for however there be natural causes given of the usual events of this kinde yet nothing hinders but that the Almighty for the manifestation of his power and justice may set spirits whether good or evil on work to do the same things sometimes with more state and magnificence of horrour like as we see Frogs bred ordinarily both out of putrefaction and generation and yet
from sinfull mankind Wo is me what odious sents arise to you perpetually from those bloody murders beastly uncleannesses cruell oppressions noisome disgorgings of surfeits and drunkennesses abominable Idolatries and all manner of detestable wickednesses presumptuously committed every where enough to make you abhorre the presence and protection of debauched and deplored mortality But for us that are better principled and know what it is to be over-lookt by holy and glorious spirits we desire and care to be more tender of your offence then of a world of visible spectatours And if the Apostle found it requisite to give such charge for but the observation of an outward decencie not much beyond the lists of indifferencie because of the Angels what should our care be in relation to those blessed spirits of our deportment in matter of morality and religion Surely O ye invisible Guardians it is not my sense that shall make the difference it shall be my desire to be no lesse carefull of displeasing you then if I saw you present by me cloathed in flesh Neither shall I rest lesse assured of your gracious presence and tuition and the expectation of all spirituall offices from you which may tend towards my blessednesse then I am now sensible of the â—nimation of my own soul THE INVISIBLE WORLD The Second BOOK SECT. I. Of the Souls of Men Of their separation and Immortality NExt to these Angelicall Essences the souls of men whether in the body or severed â—rom it are those spirits which people the invisible world â—exâ— to them I say not the sâ—me with them not bettâ—r Those of the ancient which have thought that the ruine of Angels is to be supplyed by â—lessed souls spake doubtless without the book for he that is the truth it self hath said they be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} like not the same And justly are those â—xploded whether Pythagoâ—eans or Stoicks or Gnostâ—cks or Manichees or Almaâ—icus or if Lactantius himself were in that errour as Ludovicus Vives construes him who falsly dreamed that the souls of â—en were of the substance of that God which inspired them These errours are more â—it for Ellebore then for Theologicall conviction spirituall substances doubtlesse they â—re and such as have no lesse distant originall from the body then heaven is from earth Galen was not a better Physiâ—â—an then an ill Divine whiles â—e determines the soul to be the complexion and temperament of the prime qualities no other then that harmony which the elder Naturalists dreamed of an opinion no lesse brutish then such a soul For how can temperamet be the cause of any progressive motion much lesse of a rationall discourse Here is no materiality no physicall composition in this inmate of ours nothing but a substantiall act an active spirit a spirituall form of the king of all visible creatures But as for the Essence originall derivation powers faculties operations of this humane soul as it is lodged in this clay I leave them to the disquisition of the great Secretaries of Nature my way lyes higher leading me from the common consideration of this spirit as it is clogged with flesh unto the meditation of it as it is devested of this earthly case and clothed with an eternity whether of joy or torment We will begin with happinesse our fruition whereof I hope shall never end if first we shall have spent some thoughts upon the generall condition of this separation That the soul after separation from the body hath an independent life of its owne is so clear a truth that the very heathen Philosophers by the dimme light of nature have determined it for irrefragable In so much as Aristotle himself who is wont to hear ill for his opinion of the soules mortality is confidently reported to have written a book of the Soul Separate which Thomas Aquinas in his so late age professes to have seen Sure I am that his Master Plato and that heathen Martyr Socrates related by him are full of divine discourses of this kind In so much as this latter when Crito was asking him how he would be buried I perceive said he I have lost much labour for I have not yet perswaded my Crito that I shall flye clear away and leave nothing behind me meaning that the soul is the man and would be ever it self when his body should have no being And in Xenophon as Cicero cites him Cyprus is brought in saying thus Nolite arbitrari c. Think not my dear sons that when I shall depart from you I shall then cease to have any being for even whiles I was with you ye saw not that soul which I had but yet ye well saw by those things which I did that there was a soul within this body Beleeve ye therefore that though ye shall see no soul of mine yet that it still shall have a being Shortly all but an hatefull Epicurus have astipulated to this truth And if some have faâ—cied a transmigration of souls into other bodies others a passage to the stars which formerly governed them others to I know not what Elysian fields all have pitched upon a separate condition And indeed not Divinity only but true natural reason will necessarily evince it For the intellective soul being a more spirituall substance and therefore having in it no composition at all and by consequence nothing that may tend towards a not-being can be no other supposing the will and concurrence of the infinite Creator then immortall Besides as our best way of judgging ought is wont to be by the effects certainly all operations are from the forms of things and all things do so work as they are Now the body can do nothing at all without the help of the soul but the soul hath actions of its own as the acts of understanding thinking judging remembring ratiocination wherof if whiles it is within us it receives the first occasions by our senses and phantasms yet it doth perfect and accomplish the said operations by the inward powers of its own faculties much more and also more exactly can it do all these things when it is meerly it self since the clog that the body brings with it cannot but pregravate and trouble the soul in all her performances in the mean time they do justly passe for mentall actions neither do so much as receive a denomination from the body we walk move speak see feel and do other humane acts the power that doth them is from the soul the means or instrument whereby they are done is the body no man will say the soul walks or sees but the body by it but we can no more say that the soul understands or thinks by the aid of the body then we can say the body thinks or understands by means of the soule These therefore being distinct and proper actions do necessarily evince an independing and self-subsisting agent O my soul thou couldst not be thy self unless thou knew'st thine originall heavenly
partner in the dissolution then it is now desirous to meet him again as well knowing in how much happier condition they shall meet then they formerly parted Before this drossie piece was cumbersome and hindred the free operations of this active spirit now that by a blessed glorification it is spiritualized it is every way become pliable to his renued partner the Soul and both of them to their infinitely glorious Creatour SECT. VIII The reunion of the body to the soul both glorified LO then so happy a reunion as this materiall world is not capable of till the last fire have refined it of a blessed soul met with a glorified body for the peopling of the new heaven who can but rejoyce in spirit to foresee such a glorious communion of perfected Saints to see their bodies with a clear brightness without all earthly opacity with agility without all dulnesse with subtility without grosness with impassibility without the reach of annoyance or corruption There and then shalt thou O my soul looking through clarified eyes see and rejoyce to see that glorious body of thy dear God and Savior which he assumed here below and wherein he wrought out the great work of thy redemption there shalt thou see the radiant bodies of all those eminent Saints whose graces thou hadst wont to wonder at and weakly wish to imitate There shall I meet with the visible partners of the same unspeakeable glory my once dear parents children friends and if there can be roome for any more joy in the soul that is taken up with God shall both communicate and appropriate our mutuall joyes There shall we indissolubly with all the chore of heaven passe our eviternity of blisse in lauding and praising the incomprehensibly-glorious Majesty of our Creatour Redeemer Sanctifier in perpetuall Hallelujahs to him that sits upon the Throne And canst thou O my soul in the expectation of this happinesse be unwilling to take leave of this flesh for a minute of separation How well art thou contented to give way to this body to shut up the windows of thy senses and to retire it self after the toil of the day to a nightly rest whence yet thou knowest it is not sure to rise or if it do yet it shall rise but such as it lay down some little fresher no whit better and art thou so loath to bid a cheerfull good-night to this piece of my selfe which shall more surely rise then lye down and not more surely rise then rise glorious Away with this weak and wretched infidelity without which the hope of my change would be my present happinesse and the issue of it mine eternull glory Even so Lord Jesus come quickly THE INVISIBLE WORLD The Third BOOK SECT. I. Of the Evill Angels Of their first sin and fall HITHERTO our thoughts have walked through the lightsome and glorious regions of the spirituall world now it is no lesse requisite to cast some glances towards those dreadful and darksome parts of it where nothing dwels but horror and torment Of the former it concerns us to take notice for our comfort of these latter for terrour caution resistance I read it reported by an ancient Travailer Haytonus of the Order of the Premonstratensis and cousin as he saith to the then-King of Armenia that he saw a country in the Kingdome of Georgia which he would not have believed except his eyes had seen it caldel Hamsen of three dayes journey about covered over with palpable darknesse wherein some desolate people dwell for those which inhabit upon the borders of it might hear the neighing of horses and crowing of cocks and howling of dogs and other noises but no man could go in to them without losse of himselfe Surely this may seem some sleight representation of the condition of Apostate Angels and reprobate souls Their region is the kingdom of darkness they have onely light enough to see themselves eternally miserable neither are capable of the least glimpse of comfort or mitigation But as it fals out with those which in a dark night bear their own light that they are easily discerned by an enemy that waits for them and good aim may be taken at them even whiles that enemy lurks unseen of them so it is with us in these spirituall ambushes of the infernall powers their darknesse and our light gives them no smal advantage against us The same power that clears and strengthens the eyes of our soul to see those over-excelling glories of the good Angels can also enable us to pierce thorough that hellish obscurity and to descrie so much of the natures and condition of those evill spirits as may render us both wary and thankful In their first creation there were no Angels but of light that any of them should bring evill with him from the moment of his first beeing is the exploded heresie of a Manes a man fit for his name and if Prateolus may be beleeved of the Trinitâ—â—ians yea blasphemy rather casting mire in the face of the most pure and holy Deity For from an absolute goodnesse what can proceed but good And if any then of those spirits could have been originally evil whence could he pretend to fetch it Either three must be a predominant principle of evill or a derivation of it from the fountain of infinite goodness either of which were very monsters of impiety All were once glorious spirits sin changed their hue and made many of them ugly Devils Now straight I am apt to think Lord how should sin come into the world how into Angels God made all things good sin could be no work of his How should the good that he made produce the evill which he hates Even this curiosity must receive an answer The great God when he would make his noblest creature found it fit to produce him in the nearest likenesse to himself and therefore to indue him with perfection of understanding and freedome of will either of which being wanting there could have been no excellency in that which was intended for the best such therefore did he make his Angels Their will being made free had power of their own inclinations those free inclinations of some of them swayed them awry from that highest end which they should have solely aimed at to a faulty respect unto oblique ends of their own Hence was the beginning of sin for as it fals out in causes efficient that when the secondary agent swarves from the order and direction of the principal straight waies a fault thereupon ensues as when the leg by reason of crookednesse fails of the performance of that motion which the appetitive power injoined an halting immediately follows so it is in finall causes also as Aquinas acutely when the secondary end is not kept in under the order of the principall and highest end there grows a sin of the will whose object is ever good but if a supposed self respective good be suffer'd to take the wall of the best
Angell is able to chase whole troops of these malignant For though their naturall powers in regard of the substance of them be still retained yet in regard of the exercise and execution of them they are abated and restrained by the over-ruling order of divine Justice and mercy from which far be that infinite incongruity that evill should prevail above God The same God therefore who so disposeth the issue of these humane contentions that the race is not to the swift nor the battell to the strong cowardizeth and daunteth these mighty and insolent spirits so as they cannot stand before one of these glorious Angels nor prevail any further then his most wise providence hath contrived to permit for his own most holy purposes How ever yet we be upon these grounds safe in the good hands of the Almighty and of those his blessed Guardians to whom he hath committed our charge yet it well befits us to take notice of those powerfull executions of the evill Angels which it pleaseth the great Arbiter of the world to give way unto that we may know what cause we have both of vigilance and gratitude SECT. III. Of the power of Devils NO Dwarfe will offer to wrestle with a Giant it is an argument of no smal power as well as boldnesse of that proud spirit that he durst strive with Michael the Archangell and though he were as then foiled in the conflict yet he ceaseth not still to oppose his Hierarchy to the Celestiall and not there prevailing he poures out his tyranny where he is suffered on this inferior world One while fetching down fire from heaven which the messenger called the fire of God upon the flocks and shepherds of Job another while blustring in the air with hurrying winds and furious tempests breaking downe the strongest towers and turning up the stoutest oaks tearing asunder the hardest rocks and rending of the tops of the firmest mountains one while swelling up the raging Sea to suddain inundations another while causing the earth to totter and tremble under our feet would we descend to the particular demonstrations of the powerfull operations of evill spirits this discourse would have no end If we do but cast our eyes upon Jannes and Jambres the Egyptian Sorcerers in whom we have formerly instanced in another Treatise to this purpose we shall see enough to wonder at How close did they for a time follow Moses at the heels imitating those miraculous works which God had appointed and inabled him to do for Pharaohs conviction Had not the faith of that worthy servant of God been invincible how blank must he needs have looked to see his great works patterned by those presumptuous rivals Doth Moses turn his rod into a serpent every of their rods crawleth and hisseth as well as his Doth he smite the waters into bloud their waters are instantly as bloudy as his Doth he fetch frogs out of Nilus into Pharaohs bed-chamber and bosome and into the ovens and kneading troughs of his people they can store Egypt with loathsome cattle as well as he All this while Pharaoh knows no difference of a God and hardly yeelds whether Jannes or Moses be the better man although he might easily have decided it out of the very acts done he saw Moses his serpent devoured theirs so as now there was neither serpent nor rod and whiles they would be turning their rod into aserpent both rod and serpent were lost in that serpent which returned into a rod He saw that those Sorcerers who had brought the frogs could not remove them and soon after sees that those juglers who pretended to make serpents bloud frogs cannot when God pleaseth to restrain them make so much as a louse But supposing the sufferance of the Almighty who knows what limits to prescribe to these infernall powers They can beguile the senses mock the fantasie work strongly by philtres upon the affections assume the shapes of man or beast inflict grievous torment on the body conveigh strange things insensibly into it transport it from place to place in quick motions cause no lesse suddain disparitions of it heal diseases by charmes and spels frame hideous apparitions and in short by applying active powers to passive subjects they can produce wonderful effects each of all which were easie to be instanced in whole volumes if it were needfull out of history and experience Who then O God who is able to stand before these sons of Anak what are we in such hands Oh match desperately unequal of weaknesse with power flesh with spirit man with Devils Away with this cowardly diffidence Chear up thy self O my soul against these heartlesse fears and know the advantage is on thy side Could Samson have been firmly bound hand and foot by the Philistine cords so as he could not have stirred those mighty limbs of his what boy or girl of Gath or Ascalon would have fear'd to draw near and spurn that awed champion No other is the condition of our dreadfull enemies they are fast bound up with the adamantine chains of Gods most mercifull and inviolable decree and forcibly restrained from their desired mischief Who can be afraid of a muzzled and tyed up mastive What woman or childe cannot make faces at a fierce Lion or a bloudy Bajazet lockt up fast in an iron grate were it not for this strong and straight curb of divine providence what good man could breath one minute upon earth The Demoâ—iack in the Gospel could break his iron fetters iâ— pieces through the help of his â—egion those Devils that possessed him could not break theirs they are fain to sue for leave to enter into swine neither had obtained it in all likelyhood but for a just punishment to those Gadarene owners How sure may we then be that this just hand of omnipotence will not suffer these evill ones to tyrannize over his chosen vessels for their hurt How safe are we since their power is limited our protection infinite SECT. IV. Of the knowledge and malice of wicked Spirits WHo can know how much he is bound to God for safe-guard if he doe not apprehend the quality of those enemies wherewith he is incompassed whose knowledge and skil is no whit inferiour to their power They have not the name of Daemones for nothing their natural knowledge was not forfeited by their fall the wisdom of the infinite giver of it knows how rather to turn it to the use of his own glory However therefore they are kept ofâ— from those divine illuminations which the good Angels receive from God yet they must needs be granted to have such a measure of knowledge as cannot but yeeld them a formidable advantage For as spirits being not stripped of their original knowledge together with their glory they cannot but know the natures and constitutions of the creatures and thereby their tempers dispositions inclinations conditions faculties and therewith their wants their weaknesse and obnoxiousnesse and thereupon strongly conjecture at their
very thoughts and intentions and the likelyhood of their repulses or prevailings out of the knowledge of the causes of things they can foresee such future events as have a dependance thereon To which if we shal adde the improvement which so many thousand years experience can yeild to active and intelligent spirits together with the velocity of their motitions and the concurrent intelligence which those powers of darkness hold with each other we shall see cause enough to disparage our own simplicity to tremble at our own danger and to blesse God for our indemnity But if unto all these we shall take notice of their malice no whit inferiour to their power and knowledge we cannot but be transported with the wonder at our infinite obligations to the blessed Majesty of heaven who preserves us from the rage of so spightfull cunning mighty enemies Satan carries hostility in his very name and answerably in his wicked nature hostility to the God that made him as the avenger of his sin hostility for his sake to the Creature which that God made good his enmity did as himself descend from the highest for it began at the Almighty and remains as implacable as impotent It is a bold and uncouth story and scarce safe to relate which I finde in the book of Conformity reported as cited by a Demoniack woman from the mouth of a certain Frier named Jacobus de Pozali in his Sermon That S. Macarius once went about to make peace betwixt God and Satan That it pleased God to say If the Devill will acknowledge his fault I will pardon him To which the evill spirit returned answer I will never acknowledge any fault of mine yea that crucified Saviour should rather cry me mercy for keeping me thus long in hell To whom Macarius as he well might Avoid Satan I know not whether more to blame their Saint if they report him right for too much charity or for too little grace and wit in so presumptuous an indeavour The very treaty was in him blasphemous the answer no other then could be expected from a spirit obdured in malice and desperate in that obdurednesse The truth is he hates us because he hated God first and like the enraged Panther tears the picture because he cannot reach the person whom it represents He that made him an Angell tels us what he is since he made himselfe a Devill even a man-slayer from the beginning His very trade is Murther and Destruction and his executions unweariable he goes abous continually like a roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour It is no other then a marvailous mystery of Divine state too deep for the shallownesse of humane souls to reach into that God could with one word of his powerfull command destroy and dissolve all the powers of hell yet he knows it best not to do it only we know he hath a justice to glorifie as well as a mercy and that he knows how to fetch more honour to himself by drawing good out of evill then by the amotion and prevention of evill Glory be to that infinite power justice mercy providence that contrives all things both in heaven and earth and hell to the highest advantage of his own blessed Name and to the greatest benefit of his elect SECT. V. The variety of the spiritual assaults of Evil Spirits OUT of this hellish mixture of power skill malice do proceed all the deadly machinations of these infernal spirits which have enlarged their Kingdome and furnished the pit of destruction It was a great word of the chosen Vessel We are not ignorant of Satans devises O blessed Apostle thy illuminated soul which saw the height of heaven might also see the depth of hell Our weak eyes are not able to pierce so low That Satan is full oâ— crafty devises we know too well but what those devises are is beyond our reach Alas we know not the secret projects of silly men like our selves yea who knowes the crooked windings of his own heart much lesse can we hope to attain unto the understanding of these infernall plots and stratagems such knowledge is too wonderfull for us our clew hath not line enough to fadom these depths of Satan But though we be not able possibly to descrie those infinite and hidden particularities of Diabolicall art and cunning yet our wofull experience and observation hath taught us some generall heads of these mischievous practices Divers whereof I am not unwilling to learn and borrow of that great Master of Meditation Gerson the learned Chancellour of Paris a man singularly acquainted with tentations One while therefore that evill one layes before us the incommodities dangers wants difficulties of our callings to dishearten us and draw us to impatience and listlesseness and rather then fail will make piety a colour of lazinesse another while he spurs up our diligence in our worldly vocation to withdraw us from holy duties one while he hides his head and refrains from tempting that we may think our selves secure and slacken our care of defence another while he seems to yield that he may leave us proud of the victory one while he tills us on to our over-hard tasks of austere mortification that he may tire our piety and so stupefie us with an heartlesse melancholy another while he takes us off from any higher exercises of vertue as superfluous one while he turns and fixes our eyes upon other mens sins that we may not take view of our own another while he amplifies the worth and actions of others to breed in us either envy or dejection one while he humours our zeal in all other vertuous proceedings for but the colour of one secret vice another while he lets us loose to all uncontrolled viciousness so as we be content to make love to some one vertue one while under the pretence of discretion he discourages us from good if any way dangerous enterprises another while he is apt to put us upon bold hazards with the contempt of fear or wit that we may be guilty of our own miscarriage one while he works suspicion in love and suggests mis-constructions of well-meant words or actions to cause heart-burning between deare friends another while under a pretence of favour he kills the soul with flattery one while he stirs up our charity to the publique performance of some beneficiall works only to win us to vain-glory another while he moves us for avoiding the suspicion or censure of siâ—gularity to fashion our selves to the vicious guises of our sociable neighbours one while he perswades us to rest in the outward act done as meritoriously acceptable another while under a colour of humility he disswades us from those good duties whereby we might be exemplary to others one while he heartens us in evil gettings under pretence of the opportunity of liberall alms-giving another while he closes our hands in a rigorous forbearance of needfull mercy under a fair colour of Justice one while he incites us