there is one supreme cause which is God not tied to the pressure and incombrance of a body and fourty seven spirits subordinate to that supreme Cause according to the number of the motions which he observed in the celestial orbes of Heaven and Merc. Trismegistus as Aquinas cites him is of the same mind and denieth that there are any other spirits excepting those that wheel about the heavens for they thought that those heavenly bodies could not so ordinarily move except they were animated and quickned thereunto by some spirits of life which is very true and seems agreeable to what Ezekiel speaketh of the celestial bodies which he calleth wheels that the Spirit of life was in the wheels but they might have considered that if those spirits were necessary for the uniform uncessant motions of the celestial sphears which were created for the service of man then was it much more convenient that the first and supreme cause which iâ— God should have many more infinite numbers for his use and service and so Daniel saith that thousand thousands ministred to him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him Daniel 7. Vide Job 25. v. 3. and holy Job demands Is there any number of his armies and Rabbi Moses the Egyptian l. 2. c. 7. saith That they be as many as be the vertues of the heavens the Stars and all other inferiour things and the Platonicks say that they are so many that they are indefinite And if there be as it is most true so many good Angels waiting always upon God to do him service and to praise him and magnifie him for ever then questionless it is most certain that the number of the Devils is very very great and in all likelihood far greater then the number of the good Angels for as among men Magna plenitudo hominum sed magna solitudo bonorum the worser part is by far the greater part and the number of Reprobates is far more then the number of them that shall be saved as our Saviour testifieth so it is verisimile that the case is so betwixt the good and the bad Angels that more fell then stood for it is asserted by all the Schools that they fell from all the orders of Angels and Archangels principalities dominations virtues and powers Cherubims Seraphims and Thrones and it is most certain that quoad nos their number is infinite beyond number Mark 5.15 Luke 8.30 for a Legion of them which consisted of some thousands had entred into one man which made me oftentimes to wonder how many Legions of them were in the members of the long Parliament and how many indeed are in all the wicked men of the world when they could spare a Legion to reside in one man And therefore well might Saint Anthony see the whole world filled with Devils and covering the same with Nets and Snares which they have laid in every place and in every thing as snares in our meat snares in our drink snares in our cloaths and snares in every thing we do and in every path we walk and all to the end that they may catch us and catching us to destroy us And therefore how warily should we walk upon thorns and among snares and continually pray to God to give his good Angels charge over us to preserve us in all our ways from these wicked Spirits that otherwise will do worse then dash our heads against the stones when they destroy both our bodies and our souls in hell And so you have seen the nature the names and the number of the ingredients and now 2. The Ingression of the devils into men and women 2. The next point is their ingression or Entrance into the bodies of men and women to possess them and this is so plain when the subjects are fitted for them by their sins and wicked course of life and God in justice for the neglect of his Service or dishonour to his Name gives them leave so to do that more need not be spoken of it but as the fellow that fell into a Pit and his friend that saw him there began to question him How long he had been there and how he fell in and the like the poor man in the Pit answered I pray thee take care how to help me out and not to question how I came in so when we see so many men and women as we have seen of late while the long Parliament lasted possessed with such and so many Devils as they were the best course that we can take is speedily to use the best means to dispossess them and that is saith our Saviour by prayer and fasting which is the third Point that I am to treat of But before I could finish the handling of these two rare Graces and most powerfull Weapons to drive out these Devils I know not by what machination or by whose fascination I cannot tell onely Credo aliquis Daemon magna me facinat ira Percussitque senem dum sanguis rivulo fluxit I do verily believe some of these Devils followed me with great wrath and with a full intent to destroy me and it had not failed but he had done it had not the great Jehovah my continual Deliverer commanded his Angels to preserve me for as I was coming from Oxford to London at Wickham after Dinner the man of the house holding my Horse at the block side for â—e to get up and I ascending the steps to the top of the block as soon as ever I laid my foot upon the third step I found the same loose and lifted up and I was so forcibly suddenly and so strangely thrown down upon the pavement of Flint-stones that cut such a huge gash in my forehead that the bloud exceedingly gushed out upon the pavement and was able to dash out my brains and my whole thigh from my hip to my knee was so bruised that being lifted up I was not able to stand but was carried in betwixt two and recovered twice as they say with strong Waters when I fainted untill I was laid upon my bed * By the good man of the house and honest Master Parsons that rode in my company and was very carefull of me All which in so strange a manner as I found it done I do conceive and do verily believe could never accidentally be done but that some evil Spirit the Devil and Satanas did it purposely to end my life that I might no more oppose his dear limbs and adherents But as God had prepared a Whale to save Jonas as soon as ever he was cast into the Sea so God provided a Surgeon for me presently and he washed my wounds and did help me Blessed be God for it and God I beseech him to give me his grace never to forget this and all other his goodness and mercies and loving favours towards me but to serve him and praise him and magnifie him for ever through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the
taedebat apprehendere quia priusquam pene teneretur avolabat if any prosperous thing in this world did seem to smile and offer it self unto me I was loath to take it because that before I could scarce enjoy it it was presently snatched from me For 1. Friends are like the waters of Tenia sliding away and turning as the wheele of your fortune turneth 2. Riches saith the wise man betake themselves to their wings as an Eagle and the sea can drown it fire consume it servants waste it and thieves bereave us of it Prov. 23.5 3. Honour is but Vertues shadow a winde that maketh fooles to swell but cannot satisfie any wise man 4. Beauty is such a thing as the Daughters of Vanity can tell you that the Sun will tanne it a scarr will blemish it sickness waste it and age consume it away as we read fair Helen wept when she saw the wrinckles of her old face which all your black patches cannot make young 5. And for our Health which is the greatest happiness in this life we see mans body is subject to a thousand diseases fraught with frailties within wrapped in miseries without uncertain of life and sure of death And so all the things of this world are but like the Apples of Sodome pleasant to the eyes and provoking to the appetite but vanishing into smoak when they are touched with the teeth And therefore our whole life is but painted over as some Ladies do their faces with vain semblances of Beauty and Pleasure and it is attended on the one side with whole troopes of sorrows sicknesses wants and discontents and on the other side with uncertainty of continuance and certainty of dissolution And 2. The uncertainty of our state Rom. 9.21 2. For our state all is in the hand of God as the clay is in the hand of the Potter who can of the same lumpe make one vessel to honour and another to dishonour and the Heathens conceived all was at the disposing of fortune which they according to their ignorance took for God and said Te facimus fortuna Deam When they saw that as the Poet saith Vna eademque manus vulnus opemque tulit The same hand that hath cast us down can raise us up and the same God that raised us to honour can bring us down to the dust and can either prolong our dayes or cut them off at his pleasure And who then would not serve such a Master and be affraid to offend such a Lord as hath our life our wealth and our woe in his own hands and at his own disposing O consider this all you that forget God and think of it lest he take you away and tear you all to pieces or if this cannot move you to fear God Then 2. Cast your eyes before you 2. To look unto the things that are to come to look unto the things that are to come and must fall upon the world and they are many but especially and inevitably these four 1. Death 2. Judgement 3. Heaven 4. Hell And these are quatuor novissima terribilissima the four last things and the most terrible things that can be to all wicked men to think of them and they may serve as four excellent Preachers to disswade and terrifie all men from evil and to call them continually to the service of God For the Son of Syrach saith Whatsoever thou takest in hand Eccles 7.36 remember the end and thou shalt never do amisse And 1. Death makes an end of our life 1. Of death and before it shuts the eyes of our bodies it commonly openeth the eyes of our consciences And then every man shall see his owne state though he seldome or never thought of the same before For 1. The state of the wicked Revel 12.12 1. The wicked man shall see all his sins set before his face and Satan will now bestir himself to gain his soul for he knoweth that his turn is short and therefore he will tell him that if he would have entred into life Rom. 2.13 he should have kept the commandments that not the hearers but the doers of the Law shall be justified that if the just shall scarce be saved where shall he being such a wicked wretch as he is appear when as the Apostle tells him plainly that neither adulterer nor fornicator nor covetous person nor the like Traytor Rebel Perjurer 1 Cor. 6.9 10. or such other shall inherit the kingdome of God and so what the Preachers of God now cannot beat into the thoughts of these careless men this damned spirit will then irremovably settle in their deepest considerations O then what agonies and perplexities will tear the wofull hearts of these wicked men In that day saith the Lord I will cause the Sun to go down at noon Amos 8.9 10. and I will darken the earth in the clear day I will turn their feasts into mournings and their songs into lamentations that is I will make all those things that were wont most sweetly to delight them now most of all to torment them for now that pleasure which they had of sin shall turn to be as bitter as gall when they do see that as the Father saith transit jucunditas non reditura manet anxietas non peritura and now they must die and live they can no longer and Satan whose will they did and whose wayes they followed all their life will not forsake them at their death but will say Me you have served and from me you must expect your wages For so we read that the Devil assailed some of the best Saints as Saint Martin Saint Bernard Ignatius Eusebius and others and if these things be done in a green tree what shall be done in a withered saith our Saviour If he be so busie about the Saints what will he do to sinners And this is the state of a wicked man at his dying day 2. The state of the godly But 2. In the death of the godly it is not so for having served God all his life he hath hope in his death and he knoweth not whom he needs to fear Prov. 14.32 2 Tim. 1.12 because he knoweth whom he hath believed and when his body is weakest his faith is strongest and therefore with Saint Paul he desires to be dissolved and he longs for death that he may be with him which was dead and is alive and liveth for evermore and he is well contented that his body shall go to the grave that his soul may go to glory and that his flesh shall sleep in the dust that his spirit may rejoyce in heaven And this is the state of the godly man at the day of his death And therefore if men would seriously consider this before they come to this then certainly the fear of the most fearful death of the wicked and the love of the most comfortable death of the godly would make them to have
weak to convey Christ and all his graces unto us but it is the Ordinance of Christ that appointed them for this end and hath promised that how weak soever they seem to be yet if we believe his words and prepare our selves to receive them as we ought to do we shall find them to be sufficient instruments to convey Christ and all his benefits unto us even as here the looking on a Serpent of brass was sufficient to preserve this people from the poyson of the fiery Serpents onely because God had appointed it and promised it should be so And therefore we must not prize things by the outward shew as Naaman did the waters of Jordan but we ought to consider the will and commandment of God that appointed and decreed such and such things to be done and hath promised that we shall receive such and such graces by them as the poor blind man to receive his sight by washing his eyes in the pool of Siloah John 9.7 and we to receive the body and bloud of Christ under the consecrated Elements of bread and wine And so much for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sicut the lifting up of the Serpent in the Wilderness Now followeth the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sic the lifting up of the Son of man which was typified and figured by the lifting up of that Serpent For 2. It is apparent that when God 2 The mystery which was the lifting up or crucifying of Jesus Christ which could by a thousand other means have cured this Serpent-bitten people commanded the same to be done by having a brazen Serpent upon a pole to be looked on had a singular consideration of some deep mystery that should be understood and was shadowed out hereby and now our Saviour taketh away the veil The resemblances betwixt the making of this Serpent and the manhood of Christ and explaineth the same to Nicodemus and sheweth unto him that this Serpent whose erection he being a great Doctor of the Law could not be ignorant of was a Type and a Figure of himself and did most excellently represent all the parts of the mysterie of his Incarnation As 1. The purity and sanctity of his assumption of our flesh Resem ∣ blance 1 For as the Serpent of brass was no Serpent indeed and therefore had no poyson in it Isai 53.12 1 Pet. 2.22 so our Saviour Christ though he appeared like a sinfull man and was numbred among the wicked yet in very deed he did no sin neither was there any guile found in his mouth for though he assumed the true flesh and the whole nature of man yet he assumed not the sin of man Ambros de Spiritu sanct l. 3 c. 9. and the vitiosity of his nature but as Saint Ambrose saith In veritate quidem corporis sed sine veritate peccati suscepit Dominus speciem peccatoris in the verity of a body but without the verity of sin the Lord took upon him the shape of a sinner Rom. 8.3 and therefore S. Paul saith that God sent his Son not in sinfull flesh but in the similitude of sinfull flesh Where you must observe saith Cassianus that Similitudo non ad carnis veritatem sed ad peccati imaginem referenda est the word Similitude is to be referred Cassian Collat. 22. c. 2. not to the flesh which was true but to the word Sinfull which the flesh seemed to be but was not Resem ∣ blance 2 2. This Serpent is a true Type of the manner of his Incarnation and Conception in the womb of his mother for this Serpent was not made of Iron or Wood or Stone which may be wrought into a form with a Hammer or Chezil and is made successively by parts one after another as any Image made in Wood or Stone must be done but this Image was made of Brass which before it can be cast into any form must be molten in the fire that purgeth it from all dross and the mould of any shape or figure being fitly prepared you need no more but pour the melted Brass into the mould and in a moment you have a perfect Image with all parts So the body of our blessed Saviour was begotten as the Greek Father saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not by the ordinary way of procreation as the carnal effusion of the seminal humour but by the power and operation of the Holy Ghost who framed this blessed Body Non de substantia sua What the Holy Ghost did in framing the manhood of Christ not of his own substance for so he should have begotten it a Spirit and a God Quia omne generans generat sibi simile but as S. Augustine saith Per potentiam jussionem benedictionem Spiritus sancti by the power command and blessing of the Holy Ghost who 1. As the fire purgeth all dross from the Brass 1. Purifie it as the fire doth the brass so did he prepare and sanctifie the bloud and seed of the blessed Virgin whereof the body of Christ was to be composed that it might be made a fit subject for the eternal Word to be united to it And 2. As the Brass melted in the fire 2. Perfect it in an instant as the molton brass did the Serpent is no sooner poured into the Mould but presently the perfect shape and figure of Man Beast Serpent or any thing that the Mould is made for is produced so though in ordinary generation first the Liver then the Heart and then the Brain are fashioned and so the other parts one after another and all not fully compleated till at least the fourtieth day yet the Holy-Ghost compleated the Body of Christ at the very instant of his conception perfectly quoad perfectionem partium non graduum in respect of all parts and indued the same with a reasonable Soul at the same instant of his conception which is not in other generations until the fourtieth day And so Christ from his first Conception was perfect God and perfect Man of a reasonable soul and humane flesh subsisting which is the true Catholick Faith and the Orthodoxal Doctrine of the antient Fathers and of the Primitive Church as it appeareth out of Saint Hierom in cap. 2. Jer. Athanaes in lib. de Incarnat verb. St. Aug. in cap. 18. de fide ad Petr. Damasc lib. 3. cap. 2. de Orthod fide St. Bern. in Hom. 2. sup Missus est and many more 3. The lifting up of the Serpent and fastening it to a long Resem ∣ blance 3 pole on high that the whole host of Israel might look up to it and looking on it might be healed from the poyson of the fiery Serpents was a Type that foreshewed the fastening of Christ upon the Cross to suffer death for our redemption that all men whosoever would might look on him with the eys of Faith and so be cured from the sting of the old Serpent the Devil and as
darkness and the like Quae omnia in ea quae sunt mera spectra res imaginariae non competunt all which things cannot be said of those things that are but meer phantasms and bare imaginarie things but of things onely which are verè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 truly real things indeed saith Lambertus Danaeus quò supra Observa ∣ tion 2 2. You are to note that as they are Substances and not Apprehensions onely as the Sadduces and some other Hereticks thought Apud Casman Angelograph part 1. c. 4. Lactant. Instit l. 2. c. 15. Two Reasons to prove they have bodies so they be spiritual substances and not compounded of matter and form as Symonius and Swingerus in his Aethick Tables and divers others do affirm for though Origen in his second Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Tertullian in his Book de carne Christi and Lactantius and Rupertus Tuitiensis and others do affirm that they have a body by which they do subsist though the same be more subtile and purer then the bodies of all other inferiour subjects and for proof thereof they do render a double reason Reason 1 1. For that they had access unto the Daughters of men as Clemens Alexandrinus Gen. 6. Clem. Alex◠Strom. l 3. Tertullian Lactantius and others do expound that place of Genesis but this they could not do unless they had some bodies and therefore they are not pure spirits Reason 2 2. For that they are tormented and to be punished in a corporeal fire as S. Augustine and others do affirm but a meer spiritual substance cannot be tormented by any corporeal thing therefore they must needs subsist of some corporeal matter or substance Yet the evidence is so plain That the Devils are altogether immaterial that they are altogether immaterial and pure spirits ab omni materia liberi without any concretion of matter or bodies as that indeed it cannot be contradicted if we look into the reasons of the Fathers which they produce out of the eighth Chapter of S. Luke and the eighth Chapter of S. Matthew and the 103. Psalm and the sixth Chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians as of Dionysius in his Book de Divinis Nominibus cap. 4. Ignatius in his Epistle unto the Trallians Nazianzen in his second Oration de Theologia Epiphanius in the 26. Heresie S. Chrysostom in his 22. Homily upon Genesis Theodoret in his Book de Divinis Decretis Greg. Nyss in his Book of the life of Moses Basilius Magnus Fulgentius and the Council of Lateran under Innocentius the Third and divers others both ancient modern Writers 1. Reason answered Aug. de Civit. l. 15. c. 22. Chrysost Hom. 22. in Gen. Cyril l. 9. advers Julian Suid. in vocabulo Seth. And therefore to the first Reason we answer with Saint Augustine S. Chrysostom S. Cyril and Suidas that by the Sons of God we are not to understand the Angels but the Posterity of Seth For as by the Daughters of men we understand by men that carnal crue of wicked tyrants which were the posterity of Cain and were both worldly minded and fleshly given and so wholly negligent of Gods service as you may see it in many places of the Psalms Even so by the Sons of God we ought to understand the godly seed of Seth that despised the world and called upon the name of the Lord and at length began to grow cold in the service of God and to follow after the lusts of the flesh and the vanities of this world and these were called the Sons of God as all the godly are and To the second Reason we answer 2. Reason answered that as the human souls be pure spirits and yet are tormented in a corporeal fire as it appeareth by the soul of Dives that confesseth it self to be tormented in that flame when his body was buried in the earth even so these infernal Spirits that have no bodies but are altogether immaterial may by the omnipotent power of the Almighty God Vide Greenwood in a Sermon entituled Tormenting Tophet be perpetually punished and tormented with a corporeal fire as S. Hierom and others have most plainly and largely declared 3. You are to observe that as they are spiritual substances Observa ∣ tion 3 immaterial and without any kind of bodies so we must understand that they were all created good Angels in heaven and not Devils in hell God never made such creatures for though the Peripateticks and the Priscillianists that were a kind of Hereticks did imagine that they were eternal Evils or Devils from all eternity Zanchius de Operibus Dei l. 2. c 5. as Zanchius noteth because as they alledge there is no sin in heaven and he that once goeth to heaven cannot sin when he is there being as it were ravished with the Beatifical Vision and the love of the divine goodness and therefore say they if they had been made in heaven they could not have fallen away from God Whereupon Manichaus taught that there were two Gods from all eternity the one good and the Authour of all goodness Danaeus Isogog c 6. Clem. Recog l. 3. Nicephor l. 5. c. 31. and the Creator of all the things that are good the other evil and the doer of all wickedness and the maker of all the things that are evil and this most heretical Opinion saith Nicephorus continued almost 300. years before it could be rooted out Yet not only this Opinion hath been exploded and condemned for a most wicked heresie but also the very reason and foundation of their Opinion is so weak that it may be very easily answered For although now the inhabitants of heaven cannot sin and those celestial Citizens shall never be banished from their mansions because they are now confirmed by grace and supported by Gods Spirit ne à veritate voluntatem averterent lest they should turn their wills and minds from the truth as S. Augustine speaketh Aug. de Civi◠Dei l. 12. c. 9. yet Non fuit sic ab initio it was not so from the beginning for if God had made them immutably good It is the property of God alone to be immutably good Malach. 3.6 he had made them Gods and not Angels because it is the priviledge and property of God alone to be immutably good as the Prophet sheweth Ego Deus non mutor I am the Lord and I change not as if he were not a God if he had the possibility to change or that therefore he is God because he cannot possibly change James 1. and so Saint James setteth down this for an incommunicable property of God to be unvariable or unchangeable and without any shadow of turning And therefore as man in Paradise was created Omnino ad imaginem Dei altogether according to Gods own Image and yet was left in the counsel of his own mind either to stand or fall to continue happy or to become most