brought to light then much more shall the workers of those iniquities be made known to the Saints their Judges for if the persons be not known where would be that confusion of the face which the Scriptures speak of which shall befall the wicked and impenitent sinner upon the manifestation of his deeds of darkness Many a malefactor hath been hanged more chearfully in places where we was not known where he could be no shame to his friends and kinred than if he had been executed in the sight of those who knew him and the parentage whence he came And to this purpose are the words of our blessed Saviour unto his Apostles when he informeth them That they should sit upon twelve seats judging the twelve Tribes of Israel By which it is apparent that they shall be known by the Tribes of Israel to be the poor despised Apostles of a more despised and persecuted Saviour It followeth consequently upon good deduction not onely that the twelve Apostles shall know those of the Tribes of Israel whom they are to judge but that they shall be also known of one another and of all the Saints who shall rejoyce in that preferment of their Chiefs and Leaders though raised unto an higher pitch and degree of glory than others of their Brethren are advanced unto For that in Heaven there shall be different degrees and estates of glory I take to be a point so clearly evidenced in holy Scripture that little disputation needs be raised about it Though some too much affected to a parity in this present life expect to finde it also in the life to come The Fathers I am sure did all look this way And so much Peter Martyr doth confess ingenuously although himself no friend unto their opinion De Patribus fatemur ingenuè quod praemiorum discrimina statuerunt which is plain enough And as he doth affirm this of the Fathers generally so he affirms particularly of St. Ierom that he was istarum differentiarum acer propugnator a great assertor of those different degrees and estates of glory as indeed he was And certainly they had good warrant to resolve so in it Daniel a Prophet of the Lord and one in more than ordinary favor with him hath assured us this That they which be wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and they which turn many unto righteousness like the Stars for ever In which we see two different duties recommended to us to learn the rules of wisdom first to be wise our selves and then to teach them unto others to turn them to righteousness accordingly the rewards proportioned to shine like the brightness of the firmament like the stars of Heaven And who seeth not how much the splendor of the Stars exceeds the brightness of the Sky of the clearest Firmament The like St. Paul hath told us of the Resurrection That there shall be a difference in it that there is one glory of the Sun another glory of the Moon another glory of the Stars and of the Stars that one Star differeth from another Star in glory Now our Astronomy doth teach us upon very good inferences that the Sun is One hundred sixty and six times bigger than the Earthly Globe whereas the Moon hardly amounts unto a fortieth part thereof and that the fixed Stars of the first magnitude are found to be One hundred and seven times bigger than the Body of the Earth those of the least coming but to the sixth part of that proportion Which sheweth the difference in glory to be very great though possibly the Rules of that Art may fail us in the proportioning of that difference But whatsoever be the error in those Rules of Art assuredly there can be no etror in the words of Christ in whom the Prophets and Apostles do concenter and meet together And he hath told us in plain terms That in his Fathers house there are many mansions that is to say as Denys the Carthusian states it conform unto the minde and meaning of the antient Fathers Multi praemiorum gradus variae distinctiones many degrees of happiness and estates of glory though all most glorious in themselves According to which Rule of our Lord and Saviour we finde a difference made in his holy Gospel between those men which had been faithful over much and those which had been faithful over a little onely the one being made the Ruler of Ten Cities the other but of Five alone between the recompense and reward of a righteous person and that which is laid up by God for the reward of a Prophet He that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteoas mans reward And he that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward saith our Lord and Saviour And to say truth besides the warrant and authority of the holy Scriptures that so it should be it stands with very good Reason that so it should be and is most consonant to the Rules of distributive Iustice that so it must be For if that faith in Christ and a conformity to the words of his holy Gospel be in the merciful construction of the Lord our God thought worthy of a crown of glory then certainly a greater and more lively faith and a more conscionable walking in the sight of God must be rewarded with a richer and more excellent Crown And so it also followeth by the rule of contraries For if he that knoweth the will of his Master and doth it not shall be beaten with more stripes than the ignorant man as the truth it self hath said he shall it must needs follow by that Rule that they which know Gods will exactly and conscionably apply themselves to observe the same shall be rewarded with more blessings at their Masters hands And so the old Carthusian whom before I spake of doth resolve the question Many saith he are raised above their brethren in the house of God Secundum quod aliqui ferventius Deum dilexerint as being far more zealous in their love to God more constant in pursute of their way to Heaven than others of their Brethren are which yet by Gods great mercy shall come thither also As therefore the Apostle advised those of Corinth so must I also counsel those which shall read these papers that they do covet earnestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best gifts and graces that so they may possess the most eminent places Or if they dare not look so high to be sure of this that they do so conform their lives unto Gods commandements that when their earthly Tabernacles are dissolved into dust and ashes their soules may be disposed of in the place of rest there to expect the Resurrection of their Bodys to Eternal life and lodged for ever in some one of those heavenly Mansions reserved for them in the Heavens And this indeed is that which we
affirms this of them that all they did conduce to no other end quam ut nullus omnino aut rogetur aut colatur Deus And in this state the business stood when the first Advocates which pleaded in the behalf of the Christian faith did undertake the vindicating of Gods power and providence and laboured to possess the world with a right opinion both of the Beeing and divine Nature of GOD and also of his soveraign power in ordering the course of nature and governing all sublunary affairs of what kinde soever Whose arguments being drawn especially from the light of reason and therefore fittest to convince the gainsaying Gentiles are elegantly summed up by Minutius Felix out of whose excellent Dialogue I shall here present them according as they lay before me and then confirm the truth of that which he there delivereth out of the works and writings of the old Philosophers and other learned men amongst those Gentiles whom prejudice and prepossession had not formerly blinded The difference saith he betwixt us men and beasts doth consist in this that they whose faces are inclined to look down to the earth seem to be chiefly made to look after their provender But we whose countenances are raised up towards the Firmament to whom is given both speech and reason by which we may know feel and imitate the works of God must needs be counted inexcusable should we be ignorant of that divine light which doth even thrust it self on our eyes and senses It is an high degree of Sacriledge to seek for that upon the Earth which is not to be found but in Heaven on high Which makes them seem to me to lâ—â—ve neither understanding sense nor so much as eyes who would not have this World accomplished by the Divine wisdome of God but compacted only of several parcels joyned together by chance For what can be so obvious so confessed so manifest whether we lift up our Eyes to Heaven or behold those things which are beneath and round about us then that there is some Divine power of most exquisite judgement by which the whole frame of Nature is inspired moved maintained and ordered Behold the Heaven it self of what a vast circumference and how swiftly moved bespangled in the night with stars illustrated in the day time with the beams of the Sun and thou mayst know by that the wonderful and divine disposure of its Supreme Governour Observe the year how it ends the circular motion of the Sun the moneth distinguished by the increase and wane of the Moon the mutual succession of light and darkness that rest and labour may by turns succeed one another Let us relinquish to Astronomers a more exact discourse of the Stars and Planets whether they serve to direct the course of Navigation or usher in the seasons of seed and harvest which as they were not made created nor disposed of without a Supreme Workman of most perfect wisdome so could they not be comprehended and made intelligible but by great art and understanding When the orderly method of the season distinguisheth it self by the constant variety of several fruits doth it not openly avouch who is the Author and the Parent thereof that is to say the Spring bedecked with flowers and the Summer with corn the Fall made acceptable by its fruits and the Winter necessary by its Olives Besides how great an argument is it of an heavenly Providence to interpose the temperament of the Spring and Autumn lest if it were all Winter it should freeze us with cold or if it were all Summer it should scorch us with heat that so one part of the year might fall into the other without producing any sensible or dangerous alteration in the state of things Behold the Sea how it is bounded with the shore which it may not pass the Earth how it is fructified with trees which it self produceth the Ocean how it is divided between ebbs and flouds the Fountains how they flow with continual streams the Rivers how they pass away with perpetual waters What need I speak of the perpendicular height of Mountains or the declivities of the hils or the extension of the fields What need we speak of that variety of weapons wherewith brute beasts are armed for their own defence some fortified with horns others palisadoed with teeth some furnished with hoofs some provided of stings and others having means to preserve themselves either by the nimbleness of their feet or the help of their wings Especially consider the comeliness and beauty of our own bodies made of an upright structure an erected countenance the eyes advanced as Sentinels in the Keep or Watch-tower and all the rest of the senses placed in the Fort or Capital and will not that acknowledge GOD for its sole Artificer An endless work it were to run over all particular members take this once for all that there is not one part in all the body which serveth not both for necessary use and ornament also And which is yet more wonderful then all the rest though there be the same structure of all yet hath every man his several and proper lineaments by which though we are all alike yet are we also so unlike as to be easily discerned from one another The manner of our birth and the desire of procreation is it not given by GOD alone That the dugs spring with milk when the Babe doth ripen and that the Infant groweth up by that milky dew proceeds it not from the same Author Nor doth GOD take care only of the whole but of every part The Isle of Britain which is defective in the heat of the Sun is notwithstanding refreshed with the warmth of the Sea which doth incompass it Nilus doth satisfie for the want of rain that is in Egypt Euphrates fatneth Mesopotamia and Indus is reported both to sow and water the Eastern Regions If then as often as thou entrest into any house and seest in what an excellent order all things therein are both disposed of and set â—ut at the best advantage thou canst not choose but think there is some Lord or Master of it which hath so disposed it and one that is much better then the things themselves so in this great house the World when thou observest the Heaven and Earth the order law and providence by which they are guided how canst thou choose but think that there is some Lord of this Vniverse the Author of those Stars and Constellations of far more beauty then the loveliest of those several parts But possibly thou mayst not so much call in question whether there be a Divine Providence which ruleth all things as whether it be subject to the power of one or of many Gods which will be no great difficulty to determine neither if we observe the Arts of Empire used in Earthly Kingdoms which have their pattern from above For when did ever any partnership in Empire either begin upon good tearms or not end in bloud
that built all things is God T is true that Aristotle being a great enquirer into the works of nature conceived the World to be eternal and yet not alwayes constant unto that opinion But then it is as true withall that there was something else which inclined him to it then his meer admiration of the works of nature Democritus and some others of the old Philosophers had been of opinion that the World was made in the first beginnings fortuitis atomorum concur â—ionibus by the accidentall union or communion of severall parcels of which the Vniverse consisted that man himself was only voluntaria Elementorum concretio a voluntary mixture of all the Elements into which he finally was resolved To which absurd opinion as indeed it was though it then found a generall embracement amongst most Philosophers when Aristotle knew not how to submit his most exquisite judgment and yet was destitute of such further light as might more fully have instructed him in the true Originall he rather chose to grant the world to be eternal then to be made of such ridiculous and unsound though eternal Atoms Et maluit pulchram hanâ— Mundi faciem ab aeterno esse quam aliquando ex aeterna deformitate emersisse as Vallesius pleades in his behalf and I thank him for it who am I must confesse a great friend of Aristotles the Praecursor as some call him of our Saviour CHRIST in naturalibus as John Baptist was in divinis And now I am thus fallen on these old Philosophers I shall produce the testimonies of some chiefs among them for proof of this that the Creation of the World was an effect of the most infinite power of Almighty God the knowledge whereof in such particular termes as by them delivered was first communicated to the Grecians by the wise men of Egypt who questionlesse had learned it of the Hebrewes when they lived among them And first Mercuâ—ius Trismegistus not only doth affirme that God made the World but that he made it by his word that he did only say Existat Sol let the Sun arise and presently the Sun shined on the face of the earth and that by the power and efficacie of the same Word the Elements were distinguished the Heavens beautifyed with stars the Earth adorned with herbs and plants of each several sort as his words are cited by St. Cyrill Thales one of the wise men of Greece who had spent some part of his time in Egypt and was the first qui de Coelestibus disputavit who brought the knowledge of divine matters amongst his Country-men making the Element of water to be the first matter as it were whence all things proceeded Deum autem eam mentem quae ex aqua cuncta formaverit and that God was that infinite minde or understanding which out of that created all things In which he comes so neer the next laid down by Moses that Minutius reckoneth him to have affirmed the same thing though in different words Vides Philosophi principalis opinionem nobiscum penitus consonare Plato doth seem to speak so doubâ—ingly in this point that many did conceive that he inclined to the opinion of the Worlds eternity But besides that this is one of the great controversies betwixt him and Aristotle Plutarch who was well versed in his works and writings doth absolutely free him from that imputation not only saying of those who did so conclude that they did torquere verba ejus extend his words upon the Rack to make them speak that which he never meant but positively affirming that in his Book inscribed Timaeus he treated of the Worlds Creation as the chief scope and subject of that discourse For Aristotle next though in his books of Physicks or natural Philosophy he labour to maintain the Worlds Eternity upon the grounds before delivered yet in his Metaphysicks where he speaks of abstracted notions and travailed in the search of materials he doth expresse himself in another manner Qui Deum seu mentem causam autorem dixit c. He saith that excellent Philosopher who doth affirme that God is the cause and Author not only of all living creatures but even of nature it self and of the universall World and the course thereof speakes like a sober-minded man they which say otherwise being rash unadvised persons And this he doth expresse more clearly in his tract inscribed De Mirabilibus if at the least that tract be his where he declareth that naturally the Sea both did and would overwhelm the whole face of the Earth because higher then it in situation but that it is restrained by the power and command of GOD to the intent the Earth might serve the better for the use of men and other living creatures which inhabit on it What he hath said of God in his book De Mundo where he calleth him the Father both of Gods and Men hath been shewn before Theophrastus a great follower of Aristotle not only doth maintain that the World was created by God but that he was ex nihilo without any pre-existing or precedent matter And Galen that great Doctor in Physick who had no more religion in him then what might serve for a Physitian and an Heathen too having surveyed and as it were dissected all the parts of the World concludes at last that it was very fit both for him and all men Canticum compâ—nere in Creatoris nostri laudem to make an Hymne in honour of their great Creator and therein to express his wisdome his great power and goodness The Latines as they borrowed their Philosophy from the learned Greeks so did they take up such opinions as they found most prevalent amongst them though otherwise divided into several Sects as the Grecians were Varro as the most antient so the most learned of the Romans as St. Augustine out of Cicero doth affirme he was reckoneth the first Period or Aera at which he doth begin all his computations from the creation of the World and makes it the opinion both of Zeno and the Stoicks generally that the World had a beginning and should have an end Cicero though an Academick and consequently a Sceptick in all points of controversie doth yet conclude Deum condidisse et ornasse hominem mundum etiam mare terram divino nutui parere that GOD made man and â—urnished him with those endowments which he still enjoyeth and that the World the Sea and Earth are obedient unto his command Remember what was said before of the Rats and Mice and then no question need be made what he thought herein For Seneca as he was a Stoick so there is little doubt but that he held those Tenets which Varro doth ascribe to the Stoicks generally But yet to take him in our way we shall hear him saying that God created all the World yea and Man himself And of this truth he was so certain that he thought it losse of
Esdras the springs above the firmament were broken up which on the abatement of the waters are said to have been stopped or shut up again Gen. 8.2 A thing saith he not to be understood of any subterraneous Abysse without an open defiance to the common principles of nature Besides it doth appear from the Text it self that at the first God had not caused it to rain on the earth at all perhaps not till those times of Noah but that a moysture went up and watered the whole face of the ground Gen. 2.5.6 as still it is observed of the land of Egypt And that it did continue thus till the days of Noah may be collected from the bow which God set in the Clouds which otherwise as Porphyrie did shrewdly gather had been there before and if no clouds nor rain in the times before the Cataracts of heaven spoken of Gen. 7. 11. 8.2 must have some other exposition then they have had formerly Nay he collects and indeed probably enough from his former principles that this aboundance of waters falling then from those heavenly treasuries and sunke into the secret receptacles of the earth have been the matter of those clouds which are and have been since occasioned and called forth by the heat and influence of the Sun and others of the stars and celestiall bodies These are the principall reasons he insists upon And unto those me thinks the Philosophical tradition of a Crystalline heaven the watery Firmament we may call it doth seem to add some strength or moment which hath been therefore interposed between the eighth sphere and the primum mobile that by the natural coolness and complexion of it it might repress and moderate the fervour of the primum mobile which otherwise by its violent and rapid motion might suddenly put all the world in a conflagration For though perhaps there may be no such thing in nature as this Crystalline heaven yet I am very apt to perswade my self that the opinion was first grounded on this Text of Moses where we are told of Waters above the Firmament but whether rightly understood I determine not But I desire to be excused for this excursion though pertinent enough to the point in hand which was to shew the power and wisdome of Almighty God in ordering the whole work of the Worlds Creation To proceed therefore where we left As we are told in holy Scripture that God made the World and of the time when and the manner how he did first create it so finde we there the speciall motions which induced him to it Of these the chief and ultimate is the glory of God which not only Men and Angels do dayly celebrate but all the Creatures else set forth in their severall kindes The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy work saith the royall Psalmist And Benedicite domino opera ejus O blesse the Lord saith he all ye works of his Psal. 103.22 The second was to manifest his great power and wisdome which doth most clearly shew it self in the works of his hands there being no creature in the world no not the most contemptible and inconsiderable of all the rest in making or preserving which we do not finde a character of Gods power and goodness For not the Angels only and the Sun and Moon nor Dragons only and the Beasts of more noble nature but even the very worms are called on to extol Gods name All come within the compass of laudate Dominum and that upon this reason only He spake the word and they were made he commanded and they were created In the third place comes in the Creation of Angels and men that as the inanimate and irrational creatures do afford sufficient matter to set forth Gods goodness so there might be some creatures of more excellent nature which might take all occasions to express the same who therefore are more frequently and more especially required to perform this duty Benedicite Domino omnes Angeli ejus O praise the Lord all ye Angels of his ye that excel in strength ye that fulfil his commandements for the Angels are but ministring spirits Psal. 104.4 and hearken to the voyce of his words And as for men he cals upon them four times in one only Psalm to discharge this Office which sheweth how earnestly he expecteth it from them O that men would therefore praise the LORD for his goodness and declare the wonders which he doth to the children of men Then follows his selecting of some men out of all the rest into that sacred body which we call the Church whom he hath therefore saved from the hands of their enemies that they might serve him without fear in righteousness and holiness all the days of their lives And therefore David doth not only call upon mankinde generally to set forth the goodness of the Lord but particularly on the Church Praise the Lord O Hierusalem Praise thy God O Sion And that not only with and amongst the rest but more then any other of the sons of men How so because he sheweth his word unto Jacob his statutes and his Ordinances unto Israel A favour not vouchsafed to other Nations nor have the Heathen knowledge of his laws for so it followeth in that Psalm v. 19 20. The Church then because most obliged is most bound to praise him according to that divine rule of eternal justice that unto whomsoever more is given of him the more shall be required And last of all the Lord did therefore in the time when it seemed best to him accomplish this great work of the Worlds Creation that as his infinite power was manifested in the very making so he might exercise his Providence and shew his most incomprehensible wisdome in the continual preservation and support thereof And certainly it is not easie to determine whether his Power were greater in the first Creation or his Providence more wonderful and of greater consequence in the continual goverance of the World so made which questionless had long before this time relapsed to its primitive nothing had he not hitherto supported it by his mighty hand For not alone these sublunary creatures which we daily see nor yet the heavenly bodies which we look on with such admiration but even the Heaven of Heavens and the Hosts thereof Archangels Angels Principalities Powers or by what name soever they are called in Scripture enjoy their actual existence and continual beeing not from their own nature or their proper Essence but from the goodness of their Maker For he it is as St. Paul telleth us in the Acts who hath not only made the World and all things therein but still gives life and breath unto every creature and hath determined of the times before appointed and also of the bounds of their habitation And so much Seneca Pauls dear friend if there be any truth in those letters which do bear their names hath affirmed also
it so doth it signifie their office for Angelus nomen est officii non naturae as the Fathers tell us which is to be the messengers from God to Man as oft as there is any important businesse which requires it of them to be the Nuncios as it were from Gods supreme holiness to manage his affaires with the sons of men And unto this the Apostle also doth agree telling us that they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ministring Spirits sent forth to minister unto them that shall be heires of Salvation Spirits they are according to the nature in which they were made and Ministring Spirits or Ministers as he calleth them out of David v. 7. with reference to the office unto which designed We have their nature in the word Spirits which sheweth them to be pure incorporeal substances not made of any corrupt matter as the bodies of men and so not having any internall principle of being they can have none neither of dissolution and yet as Creatures made by the hand of God they are reducible to nothing by the hand that made them although they have not in themselves any passive principle to make them naturally moral It is the priviledge or prerogative of Almighty God to be purely Simple without composition parts or passion The Angels though they come most near him yet fall short of this Who though they are not made of a matter and forme and so not naturally subject to the law of corruption yet are they made up or compounded of Act and Power or Actus aud Potentia in the School-mens language an Act by which they are a Power into which they may be reduced And being so made up of an Act of being and a Power of not being though probably that Power shall never be reduced into Act they fall exceeding short of the nature of GOD whose name is I AM and is so that it is impossible that he should not be or be any other then he is God being as uncapable of change as of composition Nay so great is the difference betwixt their nature and the nature of God so infinitely do they fall short of his incomprehensible and unspeakable Purity that though in comparison of Men as well as in themselves they are truly Spirits yet in comparison of GOD we may call them bodies But whatsoever their condition and ingredients be they owe not only unto God their continuall being by whom they are so made as to be free from corruption but unto him they are indebted for their first original without which they had not been at all St. Paul we see doth reckon them amongst things created and so doth David too in the Book of Psalmes Where calling upon all the Creatures to set forth Gods praises he first brings in the Angels to performe that office and then descends unto the Heavens and the other Creatures O praise the Lord of Heaven saith he praise him in the height Praise him all ye Angels of his praise him all his Hostes Praise him Sun and Moon c. Then addes of these and all the rest of the hosts of heaven He spake the word and they were made he commanded and they were created This with that passage of St. Paul before mentioned make it plain enough that the Angels were created by Almighty God And to this truth all sorts of writers whatsoever which do allow the being of Angels do attest unanimously Apollo in the Oracles ascribed unto him having laid down the incommunicable Attributes of God concludes it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that such is God of whom the Angels are but the smallest portion Where though Apollo or the Devil in Apollo's statua would fain be thought to be an Angel and as an Angel would be thought to have somewhat in him which might entitle him to be a Godhead yet he confesseth plainly that he owed his being to the power of God and was to be obedient unto his commands Hosthanes one of the chief of the Eastern Magi not only did allow of Angels as the Ministers aud messengers of the only God but made them so subservient to his will and power ut vultu Domini territi contremiscant that they could not look upon him without fear and trembling A Creature therefore doubtlesse not of self-existence and a Creature of Gods making too or else what need they tremble when they look upon him Of Plato it is said by Tertullian briefly Angelos Plato non negavit but by Minutius more expressely that he did not only believe that there were Angels but came so near the knowledge of their constitution as to affirme that they were inter mortalem et immortalem mediam substantiam a substance of a middle nature betwixt immortall and mortall that is to say not so eternally immortall as Almighty God nor yet so subject to mortality as the children of men And herein Aristotle comes up close to his Master Plato affirming more like a Divine then a Philosopher that to the perfection of the World there were required three sorts of substances the first wholly invisible which must be the Angels the second wholly visible as the Heaven and Earth and the third partly visible and invisible partly or made up of both And this saith he is none but man compounded of a visible body and an invisible soul. The Angels then though reckoned amongst things invisible yet being reckoned amongst such things as necessarily concurred to the Worlds perfection must have the same Creator which first made the World and made it in that full perfection which it still enjoyeth and such as hath before been proved could be none but GOD. The matter in dispute amongst learned men is not about the Power by which but the time when they were created In which as in a matter undetermined by the word of God every man takes the liberty of his own opinion and for me they may Some think that their Creation is included in the first words of Genesis where God is said to have created the Heaven and the Earth others when God said Fiat lux Let there be light and that from thence they have the title of the Angels of light Some will not have them made till the fourth day when the Sun and Moon and others of the Stars were made whose Orbes they say are whirled about by these Intelligences Cum ab omnibus receptum sit ab illis Coelos torqueri saith Peter Martyr But that they were created in one of the six dayes is the received opinion of all late Divines whether they be of the Pontifician or the Protestant party If so I would fain know the reason why Moses writing purposely of the Worlds Creation should pretermit the Master-peece of that wondrous work and not as well take notice of the Creation of the Angels as of the making of the Heavens and the Sun and Moon or of the Earth and other sublunary Creatures I know the common
answer is that Moses did therein consult the frailty of the Iewes his Countrymen who having been very well acquainted with the Idolatries of Egypt might easily have been induced to the worship of Angels had they found any thing in Scripture of that noble subject or else because being acquainted with the things of God he would not trust them with a secret of so high a nature Angelorum non meminit quia scribebat rudibus Judaeis illius secretioris doctrinae parum capacibus saith Estius the Iesuite for the Pontificians That he did purposely omit it Peter Martyr granteth but saith that it was propter hominum proclivitatem ad Idololatriam because of their inclination to Idolatrie For my part I confess these answers do not satisfie me For neither were the Iews so untaught a people as not to have been told of those Ministring Spirits which did so frequently appear to Abraham Isaac and Iacob And if they were so prone unto Idolatrie as they say they were I cannot see but that the pretermission of the Creation of Angels might rather give them some occasion to commit Idolatry then any way divert them from it For when they found by reading in the book of Genesis that not only Lot bowed himself down before the Angels which appeared unto him but that the same reverence or worship call it which we will had been performed unto them by their Father Abraham and yet could not meet with nothing touching their creation might not they probably conclude that sure the Angels were no creatures but rather a nature so divine and excellent that it were no impiety to worship them with religious worship There must be therefore somewhat else which did occasion this omission whatsoever it was And why that reason may not be because it did not fall within the compass of the six days work which Moses only undertook to lay down before us I must confesse for my part I can see no reason That they were made before the fourth day is most plain in Scripture Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the Earth said God to Iob when the morning stars sung together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy St. Augustine hereupon inferreth Iam ergo erant Angeli quando facta sunt sydera facta autem sunt sydera die quarto Therefore saith he the Angels were created before the stars for other Sons of God there were none but they to magnifie and applaud that most glorious work Before the fourth day then that 's clear And I am apt enough to think till I see better evidence to the contrary that they were made before the first Certain I am the Tenor of the Greek Fathers went this way confessedly whose testimonies I would here produce to make good the assertion but that I have confitentem reum For Estius himself doth confesse ingenuously Quod multi Patres Graeci tradunt Angelos aliquandiu creatos ante Mundum corporeum that many of the Greek Fathers were of opinion that the Angels were created for some space of time before this visible and corporeal World And Estius himself for ought I can see is of the same opinion also who telleth it for a manifest truth in another place that the Angels did not fall from the love of God in the first moment as it were of their Creation Sed aliquanto tempore in justitia stetisse but that they did abide awhile in the state of righteousness though they did not persevere therein as the others did Assuredly had they been created in the six days work their continuance in the state of Grace had been so short that it could hardly have been called Aliquantum temporis But whether Estius might so mean I determine not The Greek Fathers as he saith for the most part did and so did many of the Latines Lactantius I am sure was of this opinion and thereby answereth the objection which Hortensius made touching the loneliness and solitude of Almighty God before the making of the World Tanquam nos qui unum esse dicimus desertum ac solitarium esse dicamus Habet enim Ministros quos vocamus nuncios How far this satisfyeth the objection we have shewn before but certainly it doth sufficiently declare his judgment that the Angels were created before the World The old Hermit Cassianus is more plain and positive and he a Latine writer too of approved antiquity Ante conditionem hujus visibilis Creaturae spiritales coelestesque virtutes Deum fecisse c. nemo fidelium est qui dubitat That God before the making of this visible World had made those heavenly and spirituall powers so he cals the Angels there is not any of the faithful who so much as doubteth In which it is to be observed that Cassian doth not only speak this as his own opinion but the opinion of all Orthodox and faithful Christians and an opinion grounded on the words of Iob before remembred by him alledged and applyed for the proof hereof Finally having cleared the received opinion from being any way derogatory to the honour of Christ by whom and for whom all things were created he doth again repeat what he said before though he differ somewhat in the words saying Ante istud Geneseos temporale principium omnes illas Potestates Coelestesque virtutes Deum creasse non est dubium This then was the opinion of the antient Church and it stood uncontrouled by any publick authority till the Lateran Councel about 30. years agoe in which indeed it was declared Omnipotenti Dei virtute mundum et Angelos simul ab initio temporis de nihilo esse condita that by the Almighty God the Angels and the World were both created together in the beginning of time This was indeed determined then But I ascribe not so much to the Lateran Councell or the decrees and definitions which were therein made was not the point of Transubstantiation first established there as to recede from the authority of the antient writers because Pope Innocent the third did not like their tenets especially when I have some advantage of the holy Scriptures to rely upon For when I find that David in marshalling the works of the Creation puts the Angels first not only before the Sun and Moon but before all Heavens I cannot think that he observed only the order of dignity but that he had an eye especially on the order of time And so the Angels being placed before Heaven must consequently be created before that beginning in which as Moses tels us Heaven and Earth were created But whensoever they were made it is out of question that they were all created by the word of God and that they were created both for glory excellent and for their numbers almost infinite Lactantius telleth us in general termes that they were innumerable and so no question but they were For besides those many thousands which fell from God
first of these respects the blessed Angels have the title of the sons of God Where wast thou saith the Lord in the book of Iob when I laid the foundation of the earth when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy The sons of God that is to say the holy Angels Per filios Dei Angeli intelliguntur saith the learned Estius on the place And so St. Augustine doth determine who hereupon inferreth that the Angels were created before the stars and not after the six days were finished as some it seems had taught in the times before him Iam ergo erant Angeli quando facta sunt sydera facta sunt autem sydera die quarto as he most rationally concludes from this very text In this respect also the Saints in glory are called the sons or children of God and said to be equall to the Angels in St. Lukes Gospell not that they have all the prerogatives and properties which the Angels have sed quod mori non possunt saith the text but because they are become immortall and no longer subject as before to the stroke of death In the last meaning of the word though all the Saints and holy men of God may be called his children because they are adopted to the right of sons and made co-heires with CHRIST their most blessed Saviour yet is the title more appliable to the Prophets of God at least appliable unto them after a more peculiar manner then unto any others of the children of men I have said saith David ye are Gods and ye are all the children of the most High Of whom here speaks the Psalmist of Gods people generally or only of some chosen and select vessels Not of Gods people generally there 's no doubt of that though both St. Augustine and St. Cyril seem to look that way but of some few particulars only as Euthymius and some others with more reason thinke And those particulars must either be the Princes and Judges of the earth who are called Gods by way of participation because they do participate of his power in government or else the Prophets of the Lord who are called Gods and the sons or children of the most High by way of communication because God doth communicate and impart to them his more secret purposes that they might make them known to the sons of men Them he called Gods as Christ our Saviour doth expound it then whom none better understood the meaning of the royal Psalmist ad quos sermo dei factus est i. e. to whom the word of the Lord came as our English reads it And what more common in the Scripture then this forme of speech factum est verbum Domini c. The word of the Lord came to Isaiah Isa. 38.4 The word of the Lord came to Ieremiah Ier. 1.2 The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel Ezek. 1.3 et sie de caeteris If then such men to whom the word of the Lord came might justly be entituled by the name of Gods and called the sons of the most High assuredly there was not any of the children of men which could with greater reason look to be so called then the holy Prophets And yet in none of these respects abstracted from an higher consideration is CHRIST our Saviour here called by the name of the Son of God or so intended in this Creed For Angel he was none in the proper signification of the word though called the Angel of the Covenant in the way of Metaphore Nor did he take the nature of Angels but the seed of Abraham as St. Paul tels us to the Hebrews We may not think so meanly of him as to ranke him only in the list of the Saints departed it being through the merits of his death and passion that the Saints are made partakers of the glories of heaven and put into an estate of immortality T is true indeed he was a Prophet the Prophet promised to succeed in the place of Moses that Prophet in the way of excellence in the first of Iohn v. 21 25. But then withall as himself telleth us of Iohn the Baptist he was more then a Prophet that word which came unto the Prophets in the times of old and to whom all the Prophets did bear witness for the times to come A King indeed he is even the King of Kings though not considered in that notion here upon the earth nor looked on in that title in the present Article Or if we could reduce him unto any of these yet take him as an Angel or a Saint departed or a King or Prophet every of which have the name of Sons in the book of God he could not be his only Son the only begotten Son of God the Father Almighty who hath so many Saints and Angels so many Kings and Prophets which are called his Sons It must needs follow hereupon that IESVS CHRIST our Lord is the Son of God by a more divine and near relation then hath been hitherto delivered And hereunto both God and Man the Angels and internal spirits give sufficient testimony The Lord from heaven procliamed him at his Baptisme and Transfiguration to be his well beloved Son in whom he was well pleased And Peter on the earth having made this acknowledgement and confession saying Thou art Christ the Son of the living God received this confirmation from our Saviours mouth that flesh and bloud had not revealed it unto him but that it came from God the Father which is in Heaven The Angel Gabriel when he brought the newes of his incarnation foretold his mother that he should be called the Son of God the Son of the most High in a former verse And a whole Legion of unclean Spirits in the man possessed joynes both of these together in this compellation IESVS thou Son of God most high A thing not worthy so much noise and ostentation had he not been the Son of God in another and more excellent manner then any of the sons of men who either lived with him or had gone before him had there not been something in it extraordinary which might entitle him unto so sublime and divine a priviledge Though Iohn the Baptist were a Prophet yea and more then a Prophet yet we do not finde that the Devils stood in awe of him for Iohn the Baptist did no miracles or looked upon him in the wilderness as the Son of God To which of all the holy Angels as St. Paul disputes it did the Lord say at any time Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And who can shew us any King but him that was the Son of God as well as of David whom God the Lord advanced to so high an honour as to cause him to sit down at his own right hand till his enemies were made his footstoole Though Angels Kings and Prophets were the sons
he is deceased Having thus took some pains concerning the time and place of this great action let us next proceed unto the manner from thence unto the method of it and so make an end And in the manner of his coming there are specially thâ—se three things to he considered viz. the sign of the Son of man the sound of the Trumpet and the Ministry of the blessed Angels in all of which we shall finde something worth our Observation Touching the sign of the Son of man which our Saviour speaks of as of a certain note and token of his coming to judgement it stands thus in Scripture Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in Heaven and then shall all the tribes of the Earth mourn and they shall see the Son of man coming in the Clowds of Heaven with power and great glory Mat. 24.30 This sign then whatsoever it is is the prodromos or fore-runner of Christs coming to judgement of his second coming as was the Star which shined in the East of his birth or first coming into the world And this to make the Parallel more full and pertinent shall appear visibly in the East also if the Authors whom I have consulted do not much mistake it If you would know what sign this is I answer that it is the sign of the Cross a sign like that which Christ vouchsafed to shew from Heaven to the famous Constantine Of whom Eusebius hath reported from his own mouth too that being imbarked in a war against Maxentius and much perplexed in minde about that affair there shewed it self unto him in an afternoon the form of a Cross figured in the Ayr and therein these words written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say in this sign thou shalt overcome He addes that after that Christ appeared to him in his sleep holding forth the very like sign unto him bidding him cause the like to be framed or fashioned in the Standard-Royal and it should give him victory over all his enemies Which apparition of the Cross or sign of the Son of man in the time of Constantine was a fore-runner as it were of that petit Sessions which Christ at that time held against the cruel Persecutors of his Church and people Diocletian Maximinus Maximianus Licinius and the aforesaid Maxentius all which in very little time were brought to most shameful ends And that the sign of the Son of man which our Saviour speaks of as the fore-runner of the great and general Sessions shall be no other then the sign of the Cross shining in the Ayr hath the approved authority of the Antient Fathers and the consent and testimony of the Western Church and of the Aethiopick also For if you ask St. Hierom what this sign shall be his answer is Signum hic Crucis intelligimus that it was to be understood of the sign of the Cross. St. Augustine also saith the same Quid est signum Christi nisi crux Christi what is the sign of Christ or the Son of man but the sign of the Cross Prudentius a Christian Poet of the Primitive times in an Hymne of his saith of this sign Iudaea tunc signum crucis experta that then the Iews shall have experience of the sign of the Cross. Our venerable Bede is of the same minde in this with the other Fathers Nor is it marvail that he was for it was grown by this time the received opinion of the Western Church as appears plainly by that Anthem in her publick Rituals viz. Hoc signum Crucis erit in Coelo c. This sign of the Cross shall be seen in Heaven at Christs coming to judgment So also for the Eastern Churches that it shall be the sign of the Cross S. Chrysostom affirms expressely saying withall that the light or lustre of it shall be so glorious that it shall darken and obscure the Sun Moon and Stars Euthymius and Theophylact say as much for the Greek Churches and so doth Ephrem Syrus for the Syrian also The Aethiopian Church is so peremptory in it that it it is put into the Articles of their Creed as their Zaba cited by Mr. Gregory doth affirm for certain And finally that it shall appear in the East is with no less certainty affirmed by Hippolytus Martyr a Bishop of the Primitive Ages whose words are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i e. For a sign of the Cross shall rise up in the East and shine from East to West more gloriously then the Sun it self to give notice to the world that the Iudge is coming And to say truth there may be very good reason for this old Tradition of the Cross. For what can be more honourable to our Lord and Saviour or more full of terrour to his enemies then that the Cross of Christ which they counted foolishness and more then so esteemed the greatest obloquie and reproach of the Christian faith should at that day be made the Herald to proclaim his coming and call all Nations of the world to appear before him No wonder if the Tribes of the Earth did mourn when that so hated sign did appear in Heaven to call them to receive the sentence of their condemnation For the Trump next we finde it mentioned in all places almost in which we meet with any thing of the day of Iudgment Our Saviour telleth us of the coming of the Son of man that he shall send his Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet Matth. 24.31 St. Paul the like In a moment in the twinckling of an eye at the last trump for the Trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed 1 Cor. 15.52 And in another place more fully The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout with the voyce of the Arch-Angel and with the trump of Christ and the dead in Christ shall rise first 1 Thes. 4.16 Now that which Christ and his Apostle say of the time to come the same St. Iohn saith of it as of a thing done before his face speaking expressâ—ly of this trumpet both in the first chapter of his Revelation vers 10. and in the 4. chapter vers 1. So far it is agreed on without doubt or scruple But then the difference will be thus whether the speech be proper or only figurative whether it were a real Trumpet or but Metaphorical If figurative then the phrase doth signifie no more then this that Christ shall finde a means to call all the Nations of the world to appear before him as if it were with the sound of a trumpet the trumpet being used amongst the Iews by Gods own appointment for calling the Assembly and removing the camp of Israel If but a Metaphorical Trumpet then it may signifie no more then a mighty noise wherewith the dead shall be awakened from the sleep of the Grave such as that voyce spoken by