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
and some Judaizing Chiliasts who have placed happinesse in the full feed of their sensual appetite inverting the words of the Epicurean in the Gospell He could say Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dye they Let us dye for we shall eat and drinke men whose belly is their God their kitchen their heaven The soul that hath had the least smack how sweet the Lord is in the weak apprehension of Grace here below easily contemns these dunghil-felicities cannot but long after those true and satisfying delights above in comparison whereof all the pleasures of the paunch and palate are but either savorless or noisome Feast thou thy self onwards O my soul with the joyful hope of this blessed vision adhesion fruition Alas here thy dim eyes see thy God through clouds and vapours and not without manifold diversions here thou cleavest imperfectly to that absolute goodnesse but with many frail interceptions every prevalent temptation looseth thy hold and makes thy God and thee strangers here thou enjoyest him sometimes in his favours seldome in himselfe and when thou doest so how easily art thou robb'd of him by the interpositions of a crafty and bewitching world There thou shalt so see him as that thou shalt never look off so adhere to him as never to be severed so enjoy him that he shall ever be all in all to thee even the soul of thy soul thy happiness is then essentiall thy joy as inseparable as thy being SECT. VII In what terms the departed Saints stand to us and what respects they bear to us Such is the felicity wherein the separate soules of Gods elect ones are feoffed for ever But in the mean time what terms do they stand in to their once-partners these humane bodies to these the forlorn companions of their pilgrimage and warfare Do they despise these houses of clay wherein they once dwelt or have they with Pharaohs Courtier forgotten their fellow-prisoner Far be it from us to entertain so injurious thoughts of those spirits whose charity is no less exalted then their knowledge Some graces they do necessarily leave behinde them There is no room for faith where there is present vision no room for hope where is full fruition no room for patience where is no possibility of suffering but charity can never be out of date charity both to God and man As the head and body mystical are undivided so is our love to both we cannot love the head and not the body we cannot love some limbs of the body and not others The triumphant part of the Church then which is above doth not more truly love each other glorified then they love the warfaring part beneath neither can their love be idle and fruitlesse they cannot but wish well therefore to those they love That the glorified Saints then above in a generality wish for the good estate and happy consummation of their conflicting brethren here on earth is a truth not more void of scruple then full of comfort It was not so much revenge which the souls under the Alter pray for upon their murderers as the accomplishment of that happy resurrection in which that revenge shall be perfectly acted The prayer in Zachary and Saints are herein parallel is O Lord of hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the Cities of Judah against which thou hast had indignation we do not use to joy but in that which we wish for There is joy in heaven in the presence of the Angels for sinners repenting In the presence of the Angels therefore on the part of the Saints none but they dwell together Oh ye blessed Saints we praise God for you for your happy departure for your crown of immortalitie Ye do in common sue to God for us as your poore fellow-members for our happy eluctation out of those miseries and tentations wherewith we are continually conflicted here below and for our Societie with you in your blessedness Other terms of communion we know none As for any local presence or particular correspondence that ye may have with any of us as we cannot come to know it so if we would we should have no reason to disclaim it Johannes á Jesu-Maria a modern Carmelite writing the life of Theresia Sainted lately by Gregory 15. tels us that as she was a vigilant overseer of her votaries in her life so in and after death she would not be drawn away from her care and attendance For saith he if any of her sisters did but talk in the set hours of their silence she was wont by three knocks at the doore of the Cell to put them in mind of their enjoyned taciturnity and on a time appearing as she did often in a lightsome brightnesse to a certain Carmelite is said thus to bespeak him Nos coeâ—estes c. We Citizens of heaven and ye exiled pilgrims on earth ought to be linked in a league of love and purity c. Me thinks the reporter should fear this to be too much good fellowship for a Saint I am sure neither Divine nor ancient Story had wont to afford such familiarity And many have mis-doubted the agency of worse where have appeared lesse causes of suspition That this was if any thing an ill spirit under that face I am justly confident neither can any man doubt that looking further into the relation finds him to come with a lye in his mouâ—h For thus he goes on We celestiall ones behold the Deity ye banished ones worship the Eucharist which ye ought to worship with the same affection wherewith we adore the Deity such perfume doth this holy Devill leave behind him The like might be instanced in a thousand apparitions of this kind al worthy of the same entertainment As for the state of the souls of Lazarus of the Widows son of Jairus his daughter and of Tabitha whether there were by divine appointment a suspension of their finall condition for a time their souls awaiting not farre off from their bodies for a further disposition or whether they were for the manifestation of the miraculous power of the Son of God called off from their setled rest some great Divines may dispute none can determine where God is silent let us be willingly ignorant wiâ—h more safety and assurance may we inquire into those respects wherein the separated soul stands to that body which it left behind it for a prey to the worms a captive to death and corruption For certainly though the parts be severed the relations cannot be so God made it intrinsecally naturall to that spirituall part to be the form of man and therefore to animate the body It was in the very infusion of it created and in the creating infused into this coessentiall receptacle wherein it holds it self so interessed as that it knows there can be no full consummation of its glory without the other half It was not therefore more loath to leave this old
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