good when it is conformable to that Rule which is the measure of its goodness namely God's Will revealed unto us in his Word which if it condemn an Action no Intention how good soever can warrant it 2. That it be duly Circumstantiated That is that all necessary circumstances be found in it For bonum ex integra causa malum ex quolibet defectu A thing may be evil upon one circumstance but it cannot be good but upon All and every partial defect in the Object End Manner or other such-like circumstances is sufficient to render the whole action bad but to make it good there must be an universal concurrence of all requisite conditions in every of these respects These principles being taken for granted as I think no good Christian will question the truth of them the Conclusion is clear and evident That no Intention how good soever in it self can make any Action good where either the Matter thereof is bad that is Repugnant to the revealed Will of God or it fails of those necessary circumstances that must concur to its goodness And the main Reason hereof is Because no good purpose can alter the nature of Good and Evil It can neither alter the nature nor change the degree of Sin so as to make it less in one Man than in another because the nature of Good and Evil depends not on Man but on the Will of God And the differences between Good and Evil and the several degrees of both doe spring from such Conditions as are intrinsecal to the things themselves which no outward Respects much less men's Opinions can vary nor sanctifie the use of them What is evil in some circumstances may be good in other but if the thing be wholly bad in it self it can never be made good till there come a cause as great to change the Nature as to make it Nor is sin de numero eligibilium It can neither be chosen for its own sake nor in reference to any farther end E malis minimum may hold true in Evils of pain but in Evils of fault or sin E malis nullum is the Rule For as there is neither form nor beauty in sin that we should desire it so neither any good use we can put it to For that Actio peccati non est Ordinabilis ad bonum finem is the common Resolution of the Schools 'T is true indeed that God can and many times doth order the very sins of Men to a good end but that is beyond our skill nor must we commit any though accidentally and in the event it may possibly turn to his glory We are not to tell a lye although through it the truth of God may more abound to his glory as St. Paul speaks Rom. 3. 7. And the reason is because God Himself whose Will ought to be our Rule hath expresly forbid us so to doe Will ye speak wickedly for God or talk deceitfully for Him says Job ch 13. 7. Will He borrow Patronage to his Cause from falsehood Or will he be glorified by those Sins which he forbids and abhorrs I find indeed a sort of people in Esay 66. 5. who when they hated their Brethren and cast them out for God's name sake either out of their company as not fit to be convers'd with by their lesser Excommunication or out of their Synagogue as deserving to be cut off from the Congregation of the Faithfull by their greater one could wipe off all their crime by saying The Lord be glorified But what says God Himself of them They have desired their own ways and their Soul delighteth in their Abominations They did evil before mine eye and chose that in which I delighted not ver 3 4. That is they did their own Will not mine and pretended to advance my Glory in such a way as themselves fancied but I never allow'd of God will as soon part with his Glory as have it thus promoted With Him it is much the same thing to be made the End as the Author of Sin and whether we doe good to a bad end as the Pharisees did or evil to a good one with these in the Text we are equally guilty in the sight of God who will be sure to punish us even for our good but unwarrantable Intentions As He did King Saul for reserving the best of the flocks of Ameleck which he had devoted to utter destruction though it were for a Sacrifice And King Uzzah for putting forth his hand to support the tottering Ark out of a very good intention as he thought because that was no part of his but of the Levites office Does St. Paul justifie himself for having persecuted the Church of God though with a very good intention So far was he from that that he calls himself the chiefest of sinners for the Commissions of that time wherein he says he served God with a pure conscience and did what he thought in his heart he was obliged to doe His good conscience could not then in his account sanctifie his actings nor make his bloudy hands undefiled 'T was blasphemy and persecution for all 't was Conscience I was before says he a blasphemer and a persecuter and injurious v. 13. So that a conscientious or which is here the same thing a well-meaning Man may for all that be the chiefest of sinners nor will it avail any one to shroud his soul actions under handsome intentions What more abominable than Idolatry or what more acceptable service to God than to destroy it And yet those Christians who in a preposterous Zeal and as they thought a good Intention brake down Heathen Images and deservedly suffered for it were never thought fit to be received by the Church into its Martyrology The persons here had as good a pretence as could be it was to doe God service What better Intention And yet they excommunicated and killed Christ's Disciples What Action could be worse Are they thankt for their pains Nay are they not therefore charged by our Lord with gross Ignorance with not knowing the Father nor Himself This may suffice to shew the Impiety of this opinion That a present Evil may be done in prospect of a future Good Give me leave now in a word to shew you also the Mischief of it the bad Influence it has on practice It is impossible for me to tell you what destruction it hath brought and daily brings upon the Earth How many Churches it hath devoured how many Countries depopulated how it hath filled the World with bloud and rapine and must of necessity still confound it by begetting and for ever perpetuating religious feuds and quarrels among Christians For while each Party thinks he has God on his side and that he has as good a right to his Opinion as he that opposeth it hath to his which is a strong persuasion that he is in the right till he be convinc'd that he is in the wrong There can be no end of
up the Law of Nature each Pagan may confute an Infidel and each Sinner himself That there is a God to be worshipped is founded in that natural Dependence Rational Creatures have on their Creator and that Good and Evil are different things is the Voice and Dictate of Natural Reason too which he that contradicts unmans himself and is to be lookt on as a Monster in Nature Such there have been in all times and which is strange even in those of Divine Revelation for we find the Jews themselves upbraided here with this Impiety which was so much the grosser in them because besides the unwritten they had withall a written Law to instruct them better Both in effect the same the same Precepts in stone and in the heart The Mosaical Law being nothing else but a Digest of that of Nature where the only difference is in the Clearness of the Character For Moses did but display and enlarge the Phylacteries of Nature This was still the Text and all his Precepts but so many Commentaries on it He did but trim up that Candle of the Lord natural Reason which before burnt dim set off Vertue with a better Lustre and expose Vice in its proper shape and hue giving That all its natural Advantage to charm the Eye and painting out This in such lively Colours as might represent it in its utmost Deformity Yet such was the perverse blindness of some that they could see no difference here at all no distinction between an Angel of Light and a Fiend Good and Evil were to them both alike or rather not alike for they preferred Evil to Good did not only confound the Names and Nature of these things but in a cross manner misplace them putting Darkness for Light and Light for Darkness like those Antipodes to mankind who by their strange way of living turn Day into Night and Night into Day This is that abomination the Text takes notice of which drew this severe Imprecation from the Almighty uttered by the mouth of his Prophet Wo unto them that call Evil good c. Which words seem to point to the Jews but are indeed directly levelled at all those who remove the natural Land-marks and Boundaries of Moral Good and Evil and they present us with these three Observations 1. That there is a Real and Natural difference between Vertue and Vice called here Good and Evil. 2. That there always have been and still are such as labour to take away this Difference Men that call Good Evil and Evil Good 3. That to do so To endeavour to alter the Nature and Property of Moral Good and Evil is such a heinous provocation as will inevitably bring a Curse upon it Of these in their Order And 1. That there is a real and natural Difference between Vertue and Vice called here Good and Evil. It seems the Academician and Epicurean Sects were rife in the Prophet Esay's Days who being a loose sort of men and impatient of all natural and moral Restraints would fain perswade themselves and all others That nothing was in it self good or bad that there was no such distinction in Nature but only in the opinion of men who were pleased to make an inclosure where God and Nature had laid all in common Nec natura potest justo secernere iniquum was their fundamental Principle A Principle which because I find taken up and improved by some of the like depraved Judgment and it is the very Source and Fountain of much of that Corruption that is in the World deserves to be considered and the direct way to disprove it will be to make out a real and natural Difference between moral Good and Evil which I shall endeavour to do 1. From the Nature of a Divine Being 2. From our own Make and Constitution 3. From the natural Beauty of Good and Deformity of Evil whereof every Man's Reason is the proper Measure and Judge 4. From such contrary Effects as must of necessity argue a Contrariety in their Causes 1. The first proof of this Truth I shall fetch from God Himself in whose very Nature and Being the difference between Good and Evil is conspicuous For 't is evident that there is something simply Good and something simply Evil even to Divine Being something which God is by the Necessity of his Nature and something which by the same Necessity He cannot be For should I ask Epicurean Christians whether God can be other than what He now is or the Scripture represents Him They must needs resolve the question in the Negative unless they will deny Him to be God or which is the same thing grant him mutable Immutability being so essential to him that what he now is he ever was and what he ever was he ever shall be and cannot chuse but be so Now God from all Eternity was just mercifull good and true 'T is the Description he gives of Himself Exodus 34. 6. The Lord the Lord God merciful and gracious long suffering and abundant in Goodness and Truth And were not these his essential and unalterable Properties the Reverse of that Description might as well befit him which were the highest Blasphemy imaginable and the Manichees needed not to have invented two distinct Principles of Good and Evil when by the Epicurean Doctrine these so contrary things might well enough be reconciled to one and the same Divine Being whereas the Scripture tells us that some things are impossible for God to do As to lye and to be unjust And surely what He cannot Man ought not What is good or bad to Him must be so to us too and what is contrary to the divine can never be a part of humane Perfection If God cannot be other than good mercifull and just Man who was created after his Image must of necessity resemble his Creator and the Copy to be complete in all points answer its Original 2. As indeed it does For upon this account of a natural resemblance 't is that we are said to be Partakers of the divine Nature and God has so wrought and woven his Image into the very frame of our being that like Phidias his Picture in Minerva's Shield it can never be totally defaced without the ruine of that frame And herein also the differences of Good and Evil are apparent For our Passions Fear and Shame especially do manifestly betray them Omne malum aut timore aut pudore persudit natura Nature saith Tertullian hath dasht every Vice with Fear or Shame As for the first of these Fear The continual Frights the pale Countenances and broken Sleeps of wicked Men do plainly argue the inward dissatisfactions of natural Conscience when they doe amiss the guilt of the heart usually spreading it self over the face As on the other side Innocence is ever quiet and bold and they who act by the rules of right reason always calm and serene Of which so apparent contrary effects no better account can be given than
recourse to Miracles we must of necessity conclude them to be of a higher Efficiency Those many more than ordinary Tempests devouring Earthquakes firey Inundations and Apparitions which have been seen and heard of so many though they may indeed have natural Causes yet 't is highly probable that these things are not the ordinary Effects of Nature 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 horror As the Frogs of Egypt ordinarily bred out of putrification and generation were yet for a plague to that wicked Nation supernaturally also produced I might instance in sundry miraculous Preservations whereunto in all probability Angels concur How many have fallen from very high Precipices into deep Pits past the natural probability of hope which yet have been preserved not from Death only but from Hurt How many have been raised up from deadly Sicknesses when all natural Helps have given them for lost God's Angels no doubt have been their secret Physicians Have we had instinctive intimations of the Death of some absent friends which no humane intelligence had bidden us to suspect who but Angels have been our Informers Have we been kept from Dangers which our best Providence could neither have foreseen nor diverted we owe these strange escapes to our invisible Spies and Guardians And thus Gerson attributes the wonderfull preservation of Infants from so many perils they usually run into to the super-intendency of Angels Indeed where we find a probability of second Causes in Nature we are apt to confine our Thoughts to them and look no higher yet even there many times are unseen Hands Had we seen the House fall upon the Heads of Job's Children we should perhaps have ascrib'd 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 Israelites falling dead of the Plague we should have complain'd of some strange infection in the Air when David saw the Angel acting in that Mortality When the Israelites forcibly expell'd the Canaanites nothing appear'd 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 Exod. 33. 2. Nothing appear'd when the Egyptians first-born were struck dead in one night the Astrologers would perhaps say they were Planet-struck but 't was an Angel's hand that smote them Balaam saw his Ass disorderly starting in the path He who formerly had seen Visions now sees nothing but a Wall and a Way but his Ass who for the present had more of the Prophet than his Master could see an Angel and a Sword Nothing was seen at the Pool of Bethesda but a moved Water when the sudden Cures were wrought which perhaps might be attributed to some beneficial Constellation but the Scripture tells us that an Angel descended and infused that healing quality into the Water Elias could see an Army of the Heavenly Host encompassing Him when Gehezi could not till his Master's Prayers had opened his Eyes We need not make use of Cardan's Eye-salve to discern Spirits in the Air our Reason may discover them though our Eyes cannot and by the manifest good Effects they produce we may boldly say Here hath been an Angel though we have not seen Him All this may serve to confute the ancient Error of Sadducees who made Angels to be nothing but good Motions or good Thoughts turning them into an Allegory as Hymeneus and Philetus did the Resurrection And 't is observed that they who deny'd Angels did withall deny a Resurrection and both upon the same ground their loose temper which prevails so much with their Successors inclining 'em to baffle themselves out of the belief of those things whose real Being brings them so little advantage 'T is not strange that such men's Senses should swallow up their Faith since it deprives them of their Reason though probably such fancies are rather the issues of their Desires than of their Judgment Behold here a cloud of Witnesses against them not Revelation only but even Sense too backt with Reason Authority and Experience of all Ages and of all Conditions of Men Good and Bad Heathens and Christians If nothing will satisfie their curiosity but a Vision I must tell them that the commerce we have with Spirits is not now by the Eye nor shall any thing confute their Infidelity but Hell where to their cost they shall meet with those Devils whose company they are here so fond of and yet their very Infidelity methinks were they not stupid as well as impious might serve to rectifie their belief here which being the unquestionable effect of Satan is no small evidence of his Existence I shall not stand to confute them the Text does it for me If their Faith be not strong enough their Eyes to be sure will be too weak to discern Angels these cannot be the Objects of Sense since they are Spirits which points to the first thing exprest here their Nature Spirits 'T is an easier matter to prove that there are Angels than to describe what they are Spirits have so little affinity with our Natures that 't is no marvel if they exceed our Apprehensions But this notion suggests so much to us that they are intellectual Substances immaterial incorporeal and consequently immortal In all which capacities most resembling the Almighty and the fairest Copies of the great Original of all things Yet are they not void of all kind of matter no more than the Soul of Man is it being peculiar to the Father of Spirits to be one most pure and simple Act whereas every created Being though never so refin'd admits of some dross some alloy is compounded either by natural composition as consisting of matter and form or at least Metaphysical of the Act and the Power Yet so far we may and ought to allow Angels to be immaterial as not to consist of any corporeal matter though never so fine and subtle for this were to destroy the very Nature of a Spirit and our Saviour's argument whereby he convinced the Disciples that he was no Spirit as they took him for Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have Luk. 24. 39. I shall not trouble you with any Philosophical discourse to prove Angels incorporeal nor with those tedious and impertinent Niceties of the Schools grounded upon their being so How Millions of Angels can lodge together in one point as a Legion of them did in one Man How they move in an instant and pass from one extream to another without going through the middle parts and the like curious matters contributing nothing at all to our edification Some passages there are indeed in Scripture which at first blush seem to favour the corporeity of Angels but in effect
of our religious Duties And for this cause ought the Woman to have power on her head because of the Angels says St. Paul 1 Cor. 11. 10. While Zachary and the People were praying he sees an Angel of God who as Gideon's Angel went up in the smoak of the Sacrifice came down in the fragrant smoak of his Incense too Those glorious Spirits are indeed always with us but most in our Devotions They rejoyce to be with us while we are with our God nor will they any longer be with us than while we are with Him while we keep in his ways they will keep us safe if we go out of his Precincts we forfeit their Protection They will certainly leave us when we forsake God and when the Good ones go from us the Evil will come to us as in Saul's case And therefore to prevent the coming of the bad let us be sure to make the good ones our friends which we shall best doe by being like them by imitating them in their Obedience as our Saviour bids us in their Purity and Humility as also in their Charity by ministring to others though never so mean as they doe to us who are so much below them that so we may be the true heirs of Salvation be sure of their Protection here and enjoy their Society hereafter Which God of his infinite Mercy grant for his sake who is the Angel of the Covenant c. Amen Soli Deo gloria in aeternum A SERMON Preached on All-saints-day COLOS. I. 12. Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light SAint John reflecting on the Honour and Dignity of God's Children is so affected with that very Thought that in a Divine Rapture he breaks forth Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God! 1 Joh. 3. 1. And then describing the future happiness that Relation should entitle us to he does it in such terms as shew it unconceivable ver 2. We are now says he the Sons of God but it doth not yet appear what we shall be In like manner St. Paul speaking of the Joys above describes them Negatively telling us rather what they are not than what they are Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither have entred into the Heart of Man the things which God hath prepared far them that love him 1 Cor. 2. 9. That is they exceed the apprehension not only of humane Sense but Understanding Now if any could have given us an exact description of those things then surely these two Apostles For since Heaven did as it were come down to the one in Visions and Revelations and the other went up thither having been caught up into it Who fitter than these Persons to display the Glories of that Place which themselves had seen And yet we see the only account they give or indeed could give us of them is but this That they are unaccountable not to be reacht by Thought nor to be known but by Enjoyment But how obscure soever or inexpressible those Glories appear to such as expect them This is certain that they are reserved and laid up in a sure place for as many as God shall account worthy of them An Estate they have in Reversion though now incapable of its actual Possession during their minority They are Heirs apparent of Salvation even in this their nonage and are as sure of Heaven as if they were already in it For it is their certain Inheritance Yet lest any should wax proud of their Title they are to remember that they owe it not to themselves but to the mere goodness of their Heavenly Father who both gives them the thing it self and their capacity for it Gives them Heaven and makes Heavenly too and therefore may justly challenge their most hearty acknowledgment of so great a Mercy which is that the Apostle requires of these Colossians That they should give thanks to the Father who had made them meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light So that we have in these words 1. A Description of the future Happiness of God's Children consisting of two Particulars 1. That it is their Inheritance 2. An Inheritance in light 2. The Persons who are the true Heirs and Proprietaries thereof The Saints 3. The Manner of its Conveyance to them and that is by Free-gift It descends not to them by any natural succession nor is it the fruit of their own pains or purchase But 't is God the Father that makes them both Partakers and meet Partakers thereof 4. Lastly Here is a Duty on their part to be performed arising from so high an Obligation That since the Father had been so bountifull in bestowing on them so goodly an Inheritance they should not fail to be thankfull to Him for it Giving thanks c. These be the Parts whereof briefly in their order And first of the Inheritance it self with the Nature and Condition thereof An Inhertaince in light An Inheritance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Singular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is it seems but one common Inheritance as but one common Salvation wherein all God's Saints are Heirs in solidum And let not this trouble any of them For Heaven is big enough and God sufficient for All. There not the Elder Brother is the only Heir and goes away with the Inheritance when many times the younger are Beggars but we shall All be Heirs and Co-heirs with Christ. Earthly Inheritances are indeed impaired and lessened by being parcelled out But this Inheritance in light like light loseth nothing by being communicated to All wherein every one shall have his Part and that Part shall be his All. Each vessel of honour shall be filled up it shall have as much as it can hold and that is as much as it shall desire All shall shine as stars in the Kingdom of their Father though with different lustre As one star differeth from another star in glory 1 Cor. 15. 41. Joh. 14. 2. All shall be in their Father's house but in several Mansions and with several Portions assigned them Which difference shall be so far from abating that it shall increase their mutual Glory when none shall complain that another hath too much and himself too little when each other's share shall be his own and more his own for being another's so that he shall be glorified in that very glory wherein his fellow Saint shall outshine him and his own Crown for this reason be brighter because his Neighbour's shall be so And as this Inheritance here is but one so is it a durable one That very name speaks a lasting Title What comes thus unto us we look upon as our own and our own for ever And indeed without Propriety and that perpetual all we have or enjoy is nothing We are at best but usu-fructuaries not true Possessors
with their several Actions and Operations All which clearly demonstrate their Existence For the first Their Creation may be gathered though it be not set down in express terms from the first and second Chapters of Genesis where they are styl'd the Host of Heaven an usual Title afforded to all Creatures in Scripture-language but in a more especial manner appropriated to Angels as 't is by the Psalmist Psal. 148. 2. and most suitable to them in regard of their great Power and exact Order And so all Expositors allow it 'T is true indeed there is no such express mention of the Creation of Angels in Moses's Writings as in those of the other Holy Pen-men which he omits not so much as some would have it to prevent Idolatry in the Israelites who had they known Angels would have been apt to have ador'd them as for these two Reasons 1. Because Moses applies himself to the simple Capacity of that People and describes the Creation of visible and sensible things leaving spiritual as above their lower apprehensions and 2dly lest Men should think God needed the help of Angels either in the production or disposition of other Creatures As if the Fabrick of the World had been too great a Task for Himself alone to undertake as Heathens and some Hereticks also have fancied to the manifest derogation of the Divine Omnipotency But for what reason soever Moses forbore to speak out here the Psalmist is plain enough By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the Host of them by the breath of his mouth Psal. 33. 6. and clearer yet Psal. 104. 4. He maketh his Angels spirits and his Ministers a flaming fire And whereas our Apostle v. 4. tells us That God made the Worlds Colos. 1. 16. He explains the meaning of that expression by things visible and invisible and these invisible things by Thrones Dominions Principalities and Powers the usual Titles Angels are design'd by So void of all Reason as well as of Religion is that bold or rather impudent Assertion of the Author of the Leviathan concerning the Creation of Angels there is nothing delivered in Scripture 2. A second proof of the Existence of Angels may be taken from their sundry Apparitions both before and under the Law and in the first dawning of the Gospel There is nothing more certain than that under those several Dispensations especially at the beginning of them such Apparitions were very frequent Holy Men in those times had a familiar acquaintance and correspondency with Heaven 'T was no news then to see an Angel of God The Patriarchs scarce convers'd so much with Men as with blessed Spirits They were their Guests and their Companions of their Family and of their Counsel Nothing of importance was done either at home or abroad without their privity and direction And he must be a great stranger to the New Testament that finds them not there too very often among the Servants of God For though God had for a long time withdrawn from the Jews all means of supernatural Revelations yet at the first publication of the Gospel he began to restore them 'T was no marvel that when that wicked people became strangers to God in their Conversation God should grow a stranger to them in his Apparitions But when the Gospel approacht he visited them afresh with his Angels before he visited them with his Son Joseph Mary Zachary the Shepherds Mary Magdalen the gazing Disciples at the Mount of Olives Peter Philip Cornelius St. Paul St. John the Evangelist were all blessed with the sight of them In succeeding times 't is also very credible what Ecclesiastical Writers report That the good Angels were nowhit more sparing of their Presence for the comfort of Holy Martyrs and Confessors who suffered for the Name of Christ. I doubt not but Constant Theodorus saw and felt the refreshing hand of the Angel no less than he reported to Julian the Persecutor Nor do I question but that those retired Saints too of the prime Ages of the Church had sometimes such heavenly Companions for the Consolation of their forced Solitude as St. Jerome reports of them But this is evident too that the elder the Church grew the more rare was the use of these Apparitions as of all other Miracles Actions and Events not that the Arme of God is shortned or his Care and Love to his abated but that his Church being now setled in an ordinary way has no need of any extraordinary ones no more than the Israelites had of Manna when they were once got out of the Wilderness Nay such extraordinary ones now would perhaps be not useless only but dangerous and we may justly suspect those strange Relations of the Romanists concerning later Angelical Apparitions to Saints of their own Canonizing when we see them made use of to countenance Doctrines of Men. And yet notwithstanding their false play here 't is hard to say that all those instances which sober learned Men have given us of Modern Apparitions are utterly incredible But it has often fallen out indeed that Evil spirits have appeared in this wicked and corrupt Age more than good ones The frequent experience of later days gives in here its Evidence and 't is unreasonable wholly to reject it there being no other reason but this to doe so that our selves doe not see what others so peremptorily affirm they did which were to call in question all that our own Eyes have not been witnesses to and if we will believe nothing but what we see we may as well doubt whether there be Souls as Devils And yet so far as men's Eyes may discern Spirits they may doe it in those possessed Bodies they usurp For that such Possessions have been and still are in the World though more frequent in our Saviour's time than ours is as hard to deny as that there are Witchcrafts which yet many will not allow of and the Papists would take it ill we should deprive them of this one great Argument to prove the truth of their Doctrines who though they feign Possessions where there are none and conjure up imaginary Devils that they may have the credit to lay them yet this is no good reason to say there are no such things at all And this once granted as we must needs doe unless we will contradict all credible sensible Experience there will be no ground left to dispute the real Being of bad Angels which is an Argument of equal force to prove that there are good ones But then 3dly What if we do no longer now-a-days see Angels in visible shapes may we not discover them by their several actions and operations And do not these necessarily imply the Being of things Now besides the Testimony of Scripture which represents Angels standing moving talking and the like It is apparent that there are many effects in Nature which as they cannot be attributed to any natural Causes unless we will have continual