all modesty and moderation but what fear of their necks may suggest is laid aside and all become a prey to them that fall into their hands To which may be referred all unjust and unreasonable and tyrannical Laws extorting from Subjects that which no cause requires of which Esay complaineth Thy Princes are rebellious and companions of Thieves Esay 1. 23. And probably may intend to condemn all excessive Fees of Lawyers and Physicians who though they directly rob not men of what is theirs yet discover such unsatisfiedness and ravenousness in their Offices that unless they find unconscionable consideration for their pains they will neglect the trust put in them Secondly to clandestine frauds and cousenages which are committed sundry wayes 1. By direct stealing from another his Goods which being privily acted is called properly Thievery against which God hath specially declared in Exodus 2. v. 2. c. And it is either against the Publick and is called Peculatus or Pillaging when a man robs the Common Stock or uses artifices to refuse to pay those legal dues of Custom or Tribute or other just Taxes made legal by good Authority Many men think it scarce any sin which in truth is a notorious one to cheat the Civil Powers of what is due to them but Solomon implyeth the contrary when he Prov. 28. 4. saith Whose robbeth his Father or his Mother and saith it is no transgression the same is companion of a destroyer And Christ commandeth by St. Paul Rom. 13. to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custom to whom custom fear to whom fear honour to whom honour So that there seems to be and really is a justice in giving outward reverence and honour to our Superiours and rudely and stoutly to deny them this is to rob them of their dues before God and to offend against this Commandment Thirdly not to pay what we owe and according to the Circumstances we owe any thing to another and especially to detain the wages of the hireling or labourer from him Lev. 19. 13. James 5. 4. which will cry against the hard Master who delayeth to pay what is earnt according to agreement For as Casuists hath observed He that payeth not exactly according to the known custom and rule though he afterwards payeth all in kind yet in effect he doth not pay all was due seeing many inconveniencies do commonly happen to the dammage of the Creditour upon such delays But that which is most intolerable and unjust is the too common craft of covetous and wicked minds to withold or refuse due payment of debts upon many vain and unconscionable pretences so long till the Credit our becoming almost desperate of that debt shall be wrought upon by fear to abate of his due least he should loose all They who do not pay according to the agreed time ought rather to adde for satisfaction of so long detaining to their debt than to make new capitulations whereby the principal sum should be impaired to the loss of the Creditour Fourthly to use adulterations in Commodities contrary to the common rule and expectations of men is a sort of stealing and unjustice here condemned as to mix and corrupt Wines Siders Money Bread or after the manner of Druggists and Apothecaries to sophisticate any Drugg or Liquor or to counterfeit any more precious thing with a viler and baser is to commit an offence against this Command and no better than stealing in the eyes of God how customary soever this may be and with a seared Conscience and bold face carried on Nay frequently this is worse a great deal than simple filching and stealing in that the bodies of men are often by such sophistications if not poysoned yet corrupted and so ends in a degree of murder and if not for the present and particular mischief yet for the general and gentle deserves the halter and hell no less than direct Thieves and Murderers Fifthly Sacriledge and open or subtile or private alienation of what is devoted to sacred and common ends of Religion and usurping the same to a mans private secular use against the intention of the thing hath this double aggravation above common simple theft First in that what was designed for publick uses and ends is perverted to particular For example Endowments and Donations made to Churches serve not only to the maintenance of that Person who in that capacity possesses them but to the benefit and comfort of all in that district communicating in Spiritual things wrong is done unto all them who upon the withdrawing of such due support want their due ministrations Secondly in ordinary thefts or injustice the matter passes but from secular to secular ends but in Sacrilegious Thefts it passes from one kind to another from Spiritual to Secular or Temporal besides the particular injury done to the Person to whom it is due And whereas it is said in defense of Sacriledge that the owners of such Spiritual Maintenances abuse them themselves by lazy luxurious and other vitious courses contrary to the true end of them all this may be granted and lamented But they who preach up vertue out of such wicked principles and ends should withal consider how this involves the secular as well as spiritual Person For no man hath any legal temporal Right to any estate so far as that it should prejudice the common good And if upon vitiousness of the one the estate he owneth may be alienated will it not hold good in the other And have not the King and Judicial Courts as great power over Temporal estates as Ecclesiastical We can give many instances sacred and humane whereby it should seem he hath greater And would these zealous men for vertuous and sober life hold it reasonable the Estates of Spendthrifts and Drunkards and Whoremasters should be taken from them by violence and given to soberer men I would fain see the disparity This scarce any but sees to the advantage of Ecclesiastical revenues above Secular That if the Party possessing them committeth Treason against his Soveraign neither Religion nor Common Laws do adjudge such Estates to be confiscated to the Crown as they do others which argues that Ecclesiastical Estates are put more out of the Kings power than are Secular and therefore more unreasonably are seized on than these It is true the King is in a more immediate way a Guardian and Protectour of Church-estates than of the Secular but Guardians have no more Interest or intrinsick Right to the Estate they dispose of to the true owner than they have of other mens Or does it at all extenuate the crime that frequently it is committed against such persons as cannot help themselves Yet even cold Friends to the Churches Right in such Cases hath observed and been constrained to confess that the displeasure or to speak without mincing the Curse of God hath pursued those more then ordinary and egregiously frustrated their hopes and expectations who have fingered or
A thing may be said in its self efficacious though it doth not attain the proper end of its working it misses of its effect because the conditions required are not kept For fire it self as active and operative an Element as it is doth not work effectually upon any thing but its proper matter nor upon that at too great a distance So may it be with the Sacraments which though indeed they are the power of God and not of nature unto salvation yet through some defect in the object or indisposition may fail of their proper and wonted Effect but not from any insufficiency in themselves or indignity of the Minister of them For if in this sense that old barbarous Rule be taken viz. That Sacraments have their virtue Ex Opere Operato viz. From the work done i. e. that they are Efficacious means of Grace in themselves and their vertue doth not depend upon the Ministers unworthines or worthiness provided he doth work according to Christs institution and intention it is true For what St. Paul speaks of the Ministers of the Gospel is true of the Ministers of the Sacraments Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think 2 Cor. 3. 5. any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God The Officers of God in the delivering of these means of salvation not swerving from the Rule and Prescription given by God these Instruments themselves have their due and proper effect As when a King of his Free Grace sendeth by a leud and vain fellow a Grant of some great Favour to any of his subjects whom he pleaseth to raise out of a poor and base estate to riches and honour 't is not the unworthiness or wickedness of the bearer so long as he is true in his Office that can void the Grant so neither can the evil manners of the Ministers of the word and Sacraments null the power and promises of God made in them But though evil manners and vitiousness of the person do not corrupt or destroy the nature and end of the Sacrament yet it is believed that the actual aversation of the mind of him who consecrates and administers not only not intending actually to Consecrate but actually intending not to consecrate may evacuate the whole Action But this is shown by the former example to be very false because still God hath inserted his will and annexed his promises to the thing it self and not to the Persons disposition or indisposition either of understanding or manners It is true some of the Antients have said that Intention is necessary to a Sacrament and this hath given occasion to that gross Error in the Church of Rome which hath mistaken the intention of such Fathers as have spoken of Intention For Intention is twofold The Intention of Christ or God and the Intention of Man or the Minister They may say that Intention is necessary to a Sacrament taking their Intention for the will and mind of God which if it be not observed in all necessary thing at least the Sacrament is not perfect or valid but if it be whatever mans intention be it hinders not the Sacrament is the same And whereas they would sosâ—en this harsh and moderate this erroneous doctrine by distinguishing of Intention in the Priest into Actual Habitual and Vertual First we may well except against this distinction it self because they are forced in the explication of it to make Habitual and Vertual Intention the same in all material things only they cause them to differ in that Habitual is only a general intention without any actual consideration at the time of Consecration of what they are about Vertual that there is at the entrance upon that Action an actual purpose to do what Christ and the Church intended should be done at that time but this passeth a way suddenly and all the remaining Action is performed by vertue of that first good thought But this cannot serve the turn For the form of the Sacrament consisting chiefly in the words of Consecration according to their own doctrine if such an Intention be wanting at that time there can be no consecration and if no consecration no Sacrament So that there are two notorious inconveniences following upon this Error the one that the most sacred and Comfortable Instruments of Gods Grace and our Salvation are left to the lusts of malitious and vain man to be bafled at his pleasure and the Communicant defeated of the blessings God hath consigned to him thereby Another that upon supposition that the Sacraments were duly administred and so by consequence effectual to their proper ends yet this being not certainly known to the Partaker thereof his mind must be in perpetual disturbance and conflict fearing that the Priest had an inward intention contrary to the outward appearance But they say there is at least a Moral certainty And what is a Moral certainty Can they tell They have not yet And all I suppose they can say is no more then to make it a good degree of Probability which will not serve this Case But in truth many Cases fall out so that there is that they call a Moral Certainty on the contrary when spite and malice boll high in the breasts of men and their happiness consists in doing all the mischief they can to them they malign which we know by several Instances is not seldom found in those Countryes where this doctrine flourishes most And to what they are wont here chiefly to oppose That there can be no probability of an effect where the cause is not real but jocular ludicrous and Histrionical as it must be where there is no intention but only a fiction of doing a thing as if one in mockery upon the Stage should baptize one in derision of the Faith and Church of Christ We answer That if this Ludicrous Action be so fictitious and false that the thing only seems to be done but is not done and one seems to be baptized but is not It matters not what his intention may be For we now suppose the thing to be done as Christ and the Church intends For if this be wanting surely nothing is really performed But the question is whether when the thing is really done saving the due intention this defect voids all the rest For let an Officer of a King mock what he pleases and act what he pleases in scorn and derision of the thing he hath in Charge to deliver and declare it is contrary to his resolution to deliver it yet if he really doth deliver it his contrary purposes and actions cannot hinder the effect nor the benefit accruing from thence For as St. Paul saith Neither he that 1 Cor. 3. 7. planteth is any thing nor he that watereth is any thing but God who giveth the encrease We see this in marriage more apparently than in other Sacraments if we may call this a sacrament of which by and by that let the Minister intend what he pleases
of devotion must be held before the eyes as if they were asham'd of what they did whereas St. Paul saith plainly every man praying or prophesying having his head covered 1 Cor. 11. 4. dishonoureth his head and again For a man ought not to cover his head c. 7. But surely he who covereth his face with his hat or such liâ—â— doth altogether as much thwart the design of the Apostle as he that covereth it with his hair I wonder much who could be the author of such an indecent and absurd custom but more to find it defended in some sort by Calvin Calvinus in Esaiam cap. 38. 2. upon Esay and reasons rendered for the same by Amesius in his Cases of Conscience the best he can devise being these two Either to prevent avocation of mind which may be occasioned by the eye Or to conceal such singular gestures Ames de Conscient lib. 4. c. 18. quaest 3. which may be some times necessary to us but seem silly and hypocritical to others These two occasions being taken away Covering the head agrees rather to women than men 1 Cor. 11. 4 5. Thus he And that these are not sufficient causes thus appears because such an accidental inconvenience as is the former ought not to null a direct good but publique and open profession of our duty reverence and devotion to God is that which God doth require as an act of worship and the good example to others should preponderate that particular possible inconvenience And as for the other no man ought to use such absurd and ridiculous ceremonies in his face being in publique as should be apt to give offence but compose his whole man to such gravity and decency as might become the place wherein he is which is in every mans power as it is his part And 't is very unreasonable and somewhat more that men should abhor to receive ceremonies of Communion and uniformity from the Church and yet be more superstitious in inventing and introducing private Ceremonies into the Church and unapproved by it such as this is But though all postures and gestures be alike in nature yet nothing must be done in publique but what is reputed sober modest and grave as well in respect of the persons assembled as for the place sake of which if we had a due opinion it would be superfluous to multiply arguments to extort reverence therein And what need we any farther proofs of the dignity of it then that it is Gods house as hath been shewed and the place where his honour dwells and our happiness especially And therefore before I end this I cannot forbear giving all good Christians warning of one of Mr. Perkins absurd and false dogmes which I doubt not but hath deceived many into prophaness in publique In regard of Conscience Holiness and Religion all places are holy and alike in the New Testament since the coming of Christ The Perkins Cases of Conscience lib. 2. c. 6. qu. 3. §. 3. House or the Field is as holy as the Church And if we pray in either of them our prayer is as acceptable to God as that which is made in the Church All this we look upon as prophane and false Let us hear how out of Scripture he proves his new paradoxes For now saith he the days are come which were foretold by the Prophet where in a clean offering should be offered to God in every place Mal. 1. 11. which Paul expounds 1 Tim. 2. 8. of pure and holy prayer offered to God in every place Of these words of St. Paul which I acknowledge to be the sense of the Prophet I have already given the true meaning and so answered both to this effect That whatever the Scripture prophetically delivers concerning the diffusion of Gods worship or the Apostle actually declares as come to pass comes to no more but that God should be more purely served under the Gospel by the Sacrifice of prayer c. than he was by the Sacrifice of beasts to him and such like and that the service of God should be as well performed out of Jerusalem as in it and in Christian Temples in what Country or Angle of the world soever they were built as in that of Hierusalem but that it was ever intended that he should be as well served in the fields or private houses as in Churches raised for that purpose when necessity constrained not men otherwise doth not in the least appear And the same answer likewise we give to the words of Christ to the woman of Samaria Joh. 4. 25. of which we also spake before As also to that of Christ Matth. 6. 5. reproving the affected hypocritical practise of the Pharisees praying in all publick places to be noted Then which kind of Devotion no doubt but a Prayer in the Closet is much more acceptable to God But doth it therefore follow that such a prayer as is so acceptable in the closet would not be as acceptable in the Temple and more too surely nothing of this which ought to be the conclusion is contained in the argument Now proceeds Mr. Perkins the opinion of the Papist is otherwise It is so and is much truer than the Puritans and more agreeable to the word of God For he thinks that in the New Testament hallowed Churches are more holy than other places are or can be and do make the prayers offered to God in them more acceptable to him than in any other and hereupon they teach that private men must pray in Churches and private prayers must be made in Churches if they will have them heard All this they teach indeed but do they teach this as Papists or as Christians Did not the doctrine and constant practise of all ages and places when and where there were Churches teach the very same Nay doth not Bucer one of the most eminent Reformers for judgment and Quantâ— jam religione sunt loca cultui Dei consecrata huic uni reipate facienda supra aliqua ex parte ostendimus Adeo autem vulgo obtinuit horum locorum horrenda sane prophanatio c. Bucerus de Regno Christi l. 2. c. 11. learning say in a manner as much in these words With what religiousness therefore are places consecrated to Divine worship to be opened to this one thing and to be preserved most sacred we have in some measure before shewed But vulgar custom has far prevailed in a horrible profanation of these places while men having thrown away all reverence of a Deity in them walk in them for their recreation as in walks void of all sacredness and in them exchange all sorts of prophane and impure discourse so that to remove this so unseasonable dammage to the Divine Majesty severe Laws of godly Kings and Princes are requisite and ready and constant vindications of such Laws besides the devout exhortations of holy men whereby it should be brought to pass that Gods holy Temple should not be
nor are charged by any understanding reasonable person so to do And what they affirm of all outward Reverence or Worship I see no reason but may be said of all inward Adoration too viz. that it is Equivocal and indifferent to Divine and Human Reverence unless it be determined and specificated by somewhat besides it self For Fear and Love and Reverence may be and that inwardly exhibited to the Creature and the degrees of all these may be greater and more intense towards our Prince whom we so reverence humble our selves before and Petition than when in this manner we address our selves to God and yet this not reputed Idolatrous worship Yea we openly profess we humbly earnestly and with all our hearts desire such a thing from man and so I doubt not but many do with greater affection and inward sense than they generally seek to God and yet no man charges them with Idolatry So that the inward acts of worship are equivocal no less than the outward and consequently no act in its self Idolatrous or of it self And thus have we brought the matter to that pass to relieve distressed Catholiques that ordinary Heathens may evade the charge of Idolatry though they never knew the true God And See Joannes de Palafox Epist de Jesuitar Societate Extinguenda c. ad Innocent 10. p. 23 24. apud S. Amour if they know and profess upon occasion to worship the true God yet may they perform all outward acts of Worship generally reputed Divine provided their Intention be sincere and their hearts upright before God which elusions and evasions the Jesuites have made great use of in their complyance with the grossest Idolatry Heathens are subject to in the East Indies as John de Palafox hath plainly and roundly charged them to Innocent the Tenth showing at large how under the favour of such new invented and minted distinctions never thought of without detestation by the Ancient Church they have presumed to converse with and in all outward appearance communicate with Idolatrous Heathens in their Temples and Idols And why not if all outward worship falls short of Divine and their intention inward be not to give Divine Worship to them For to define Idolatry as doth Azorius to be That whereby the worship Azorius Institut Moral To. 1. l. 9. c. 10. which is due to God is given to another and again Then is Idolatry committed when we ascribe Divine honor to created things for their own sakes what does all this signifie when it is not agreed upon What is properly Divine Worship but sometimes Divine Worship is defined to be that which is proper to God and what is proper to God is not plainly determined and sometimes that which is proper to God is called Divine Worship For to help us out with the distinction of Dulia and Latria is to give us hard words for easie and that is all and especially to add hereunto that unknown to ancient and uncircumscribed to modern Ages Hyperdoulia For though it doth not hold constantly true that those two words are so distinguished in Scripture or Ancient Greek Writers either Ecclesiastical or Prophane as not sometimes to be used promiscuously and interchangeably as might by instances be made undeniable yet cannot we not deny but generally they have their distinct significations and the things by them signified are very distinct and it is one of the easiest things in the world to put a difference between the Notions of servile Worship which is Dulia and Divine which is Latria yet in the exercise of these acts it is one of the difficultest things of all to distinguish which is which seeing it is hard to say whether the intention of the worshipper only or the Act it self precisely taken or the Object makes the worship Divine The Object cannot be it because there could be no Idolatry committed in such cases For as is said If the worship be not Divine the Act cannot be Idolatrous for all other worship say they may be exhibited to a Creature And it should not be Divine according to this opinion that maketh the Object to give the Divineness to the Act. Again there can instance be given in to one act that in it self is incommunicable to the Creature according to these mens Theology Therefore lastly all the specification of Idolatrous acts must consist in the Intention of the mind and that intention is seen in a profession of Religiously worshipping a thing for its own sake For so Azorius holdeth that even Latria which it any act with them be Properly Divine must needs be so it self may be given to Saints and to Images provided it be not given for their own sakes but for Gods sake Now it being impossible that any rational man should thus strictly give or intend to give Divine Worship to any thing for its own sake which he denies to be 〈◊〉 Imagi is 〈◊〉 culaus sâ—t Latria non continuâ— sequitur 〈◊〉 creâ—a trituatur quonian 〈…〉 Cor. Veum Id. 1. Quinto 1 Cor. 3. 4. God it follows that no man can commit Idolatry because every man gives that worship he gives in a divine manner either not for its sake to which it is immediately directed but for Gods sake whom he sufficiently understands or with an opinion that really such a thing as he so worships is God But to make the matter fairer and safer on their side they flee to Origens opinion or Criticism of an Idol as different from an Image An Idol saith he following St. Paul to the Corinthians is nothing in the world An Idol is a fiction made like to nothing in nature but an Image is the likeness of something and fain would they if they dare be so bold for as yet they touch the matter somewhat timorously and tenderly cut off all colour for accusation of them of Idolatry by defining Idolatry to be the worship of an Idol and an Idol to be that only which is not in nature nor like to any thing in the world But they worship only such things as either have natural being or represent somewhat natural therefore they are no Idolaters But I shall here demand bluntly of them Is it not then Idolatry to worship the Creature natural and visible for its own sake with Latria I will suppose their answer for shame It is Why then read we in their books Origens wit rather then judgment so vainly and idly abused Surely Origen there spake like a School-boy wittily rather than like a School man Theologically And they are worse then Children that draw his words to a solid definition of Idolatry For what says Gulielmus Parisiensis When such kind of worship Latria or obsequiousness is given Guliel Paris de Legib. c. 23. Cum 〈◊〉 cultus auâ— obsequium ad â—â—iuderans feratur sive illud sit 〈◊〉 non 〈◊〉 c. Acts 7. 4. 〈…〉 ref 60. pâ—lt Christ to another whether the thing be or whether it be not and what ever it
nothing else but the servent prayers of the Saints offered by their Minister to God for his favor against them on the earth which so miserably persecuted and oppressed the Christians upon which Gods judgments fell on the earth after the manner of voices and thunderings and lightnings and earthquakes But Eccius and Cope gives us a Reason why the Apostles left no precept or directions to us in the new Testament to give the worship now pleaded for as due to Saints viz. lest it might seem a piece of arrogance in them to seek such honor Well be this reason true or false it matters not it seems plainly by this no such things is to be found in the New Testament and this suffices us against them Let us next briefly enquire What prescription from Antiquity they have for it Where we find not one cited by them but Irenaeus who as the Latin edition only extant hath it calls the blessed Virgin the Advocate of Eve meaning no more as hath been soundly replyed by others than the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may import which is Comforter so that as Eve by her sin was an occasion of Mans fall the Virgin Mary by bearing Christ restored that loss Not meaning any personal intercession For Dyonisius the Areopagite we make no reckoning of him Athanasius is cited too but falsly in a spurious work So that till the year 250 we find no mention of Prayers to Saints though men were wont to put up their devotions before that time at the Monuments of Saints and Martyrs and did pray for the deceased Nazianzen Basil and Chrysostom do now and then once or twice in their great and many treatises intimate such a thing but as an extraordinary thing And Ambrose who knew little but what he transcribed from them and Origen and Hilary took the hint from them and first mentioned it in the Latin Church For though Cyprian and Cornelius and Hilary be cited to this purpose They only affirm that Saints intercede for us which indeed was made a ground of our invocation of them afterward but it was not to do it and they only desired God for their sakes which is not to desire them And it was not until the Council of Nice 300 years and upward that the opinion of a particular intercession of Saints for us prevail'd in any measure Nor till many years after that became it a common practise And above 1200 years passed since Christ before it broke out into that excess that now it is commended unto us by the Church of Rome And in very late dayes hath found such stout and direct opposition from the wiser and learneder men that the common practise hath been taxed of flat Idolatry witness Ludovicus Vives and Erasmus These things are we are sure of First God no where requires it Secondly We offend not in omitting it And Thirdly That God is notoriously dishonoured by the use of it amongst Christians But Cassander doth in very few words answer what may be alledged out of Fathers writings or ancientest Liturgies for it was a long time after private pens had uttered somewhat tending Omnes Sancti Deum orate pro me ac si dicatur Utinam omnes Sancti Deum crenâ— pro me Quim velim uâ— omnes Sancti Dei orent pro me c. Cassand Scholio in hymnes Ecclesiast pag. 242. that way that any place could be granted such Forms in the Liturgy in the Church in behalf of invocation of Saints When it is there said saith he All Saints O pray ye for me it is no more than O that all the Saints would pray for me How could I wish that all the Saints would pray for me But now alass no such benign interpretation will be accepted To the contrary we are able to produce much more probable texts of Scripture than are yet found there for this worship and more express sentences of the Ancients against than can be brought for it but it were to exceed bounds to bring them in here Our reason likewise from Scripture they have not yet answer'd That God and Christ frequently invite us to come unto them and no where to use such intercessors And that it is against the sufficiency of our own Mediator Christ To which they answering That Christ is the sole mediâ—tor of Redemption but not of Intercession do shew neither good Philosophy nor Divinity For Christ intercedes for us chiefly by the Redemption he hath made for us when he satisfied our debt and purchased Gods favor by his Death and Passion and these are they that make intercession for us Intercession I know is of a larger extent and implies Acts of application of that general Redemption which notwithstanding doth not justify the distinction being of Subordinates I know there are found some learned Moderators on our side who have attempted to compound this matter by changing Invocation which seems peculiar to God in all proper senses into Advocation and Compellation Guiliel Forbes modestae Consider of Saints meaning by this latter the same with that Civil Invocation advice or exhortation before mentioned and stating the question so that then it should be only a Calling to Saints rather then upon them but the argument of all civil Communion and Communication either immediately by our selves or mediately by others being wholly dissolved and extinct at their departure out of this life being yet for ought we know not answer'd and all such compellation being a civil and humanely sociable act quite overthrows that supposition and imagination And this must needs offend against the Rule of the Apostle condemning such as intrude into things they have not seen vainly puff'd up in their Col. 2. 19. fleshly mind For the assurance of the object of our prayers is essential unto prayer however the matter may be uncertain as when prayer is made for the dead which was very ancient we may innocently err in the matter for want of Scriptural information and reason but keeping still entirely to the Object God our error must needs be on the right hand But framing to our selves a groundless and uncertain Object we must needs corrupt the holy duty of prayer much more If the Saints and Angels do know what are our thoughts as they must our voice conducing little or nothing to the making them capable of our meanings at that distance of place and condition they are in it is more than we can possibly know and so in a manner as much as if it were not at all to us If they have such Charity as is pretended greater much than is to be found in holy men on earth which is most probable yet that it is greater to us or to one man above another as it was upon earth I believe not For all Affections being founded I do not say managed upon carnal or fleshly nature ceaseth with the body and the Charity being clearly illuminated and directed infallibly by their knowledg or vision so as