The INVISIBLE WORLD, Discovered to spiritual Eyes, and reduced to useful Meditation. IN THREE BOOKS. Also, the Great MYSTERY of GODLINESS, Laid forth by way of affectuous and feeling MEDITATION: With the apostolical Institution of imposition of Hands, for Confirmation of Children; setting forth the Divine Ground, End, and Use of that, too much neglected, Institution, and now published as an excellent Expedient to Truth and Peace.  
By JOS. HALL, D.D.B. Norwich.  
London, Printed by E. Cotes, for John Place at Furnival's inn-gate, 1659.   

To all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, Grace and Peace.  
Dear Brethren,  
IF I have, in a sort, taken my leave of the world already; yet, not of you, whom God hath chosen out of the world, and endeared to me by a closer interest: so as ye may justly expect from me a more special valediction; which I do now in all Christian affection tender unto you: And, as dear friends upon a long parting are wont to leave behind them some tokens of remembrance, where they most affect; so have I thought good, before my setting forth on my last journey, to recomend unto you these my two final Meditations; than which, I suppose, nothing could be more proper for me to give; or more likely to merit your acceptation: For, if we were half way in heaven already, what can be a more seasonable employment of our thoughts, than the great mystery of godliness, which the Angels desire to look into▪ And, now when our b●dily eyes are glutted with the view of the things that are seen (a prospect, which can afford us nothing but vanity and vexation) what can be more meet, then to feed our spiritual eyes, with the light of Invisible glories? Make your use of them, both, to the edifying of yourselves in your most holy faith; and aspire with me, towards that happiness which is laid up above for all those that love the appearance of our Lord Jesus.  
Withal, as the last words of friends are wont to bear the greatest weight, and to make the deepest impression; so let these lines of holy advice, wherewith (after many well-meant discourses) I shall close up the mouth of the press, find the like respect from you.  
Oh that I might in the first place, effectually recommend to you the full recovery of that precious Legacy of our blessed Saviour, Peace: peace with God, Peace with men; next to Grace the best of all blessings: Yet, woe is me, too too long banished from the Christian world, with such animosity, as if it were the worst of enemies, and meet to be adjudged to a perpetual mitrnatition.  
Oh for a fountain of tears to bewail the stain of God's people in all the coasts of the Earth: How is Christendom become an universal Aceldama? How is the earth everywhere drenched with human blood? poured out, not by the hands of cruel Infidels, but of brethren: Men need not go so far as Euphrates for the execution of Turks and Pagans, Christians can make up an Armageddon with their own mutual slaughter. Enough, my dear brethren, enough; yea more than too much hath been the effusion of that blood, for which our Saviour hath shed his: Let us now, at the last, dry up these deadly issues, which we have made; and with sovereign balms bind up the wounds we have given: Let us now be, not more sparing of our tears, to wash off the memory of these our unbrotherly dimications, and to ppease the anger of that God, whose offended justice hath raised war out of our own bowels: As our enmity, so our peace begins at heaven: Had we not provoked our long-suffering God, we had not thus bled; and we cannot but know and believe him that said. 
Prov. 16.7.  When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh his enemies to be at peace with him; Oh that we could throughly reconcile ourselves to that great and holy God, whom we have irritated by our crying sins, how soon would he, who is the commander of all hearts, make up our breaches, and calm and compose our spirits to an happy peace and concord!  
In the next place give me leave earnestly to exhort you, that, as we have been heretofore palpably faulty in abusing the mercies of our God for which we have soundly smarted) so that now, we should be so much the more careful to improve the judgements of God, to our effectual reformation: we have felt the heavy hand of the Almighty upon us to purpose; Oh that our amendment could be no less sensible than our sufferings; But, alas, my brethren, are our ways any whit holier? our obedience, more exact, our sins less and fewer than before we were thus heavily afflicted? may not our God too justly take up that complaint, which he made once by his Prophet Jeremiah, Ye have transgressed against me, 
Jer. 2.  saith the Lord, In vain have I smitten your children, they received no correction: Far be it from us, that after so many sad and solemn mournings of our Land, any accuser should be able to charge us, as the Prophet Hosea did his Israel, 
Hos. 4▪ 2.  By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood: woe be to us, if after so many veins opened, the blood remaining should not be the purer.  
Let me have leave, in the third place, to excite you to the practice of Christian charity, in the mutual constructions of each others persons, and actions; which (I must tell you) we have heedlessly violated in the heat of our holy intentions; whiles those which have varied from us in matter of opinion, concerning some appendances of Religion, and outward forms of administration, we have been apt to look upon with such disregard, as if they had herein forfeit 〈◊〉 their Christian profession, and were utter aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; though in the mean time, sound at the heart; and endeavouring to walk close with God in all their ways: whereas the father of all mercies allows a gracious latitude to his children, in all not-forbidden paths: 
Act● 10.35.  and in every nation and condition of men, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him: Beware we (my dear brethren) lest whiles we follow the chase of Zeal, we outrun charity, without which, piety itself would be but unwelcome: As for matter of opinion in the differences of Religion, wherewith the whole known world, not of Christians only, but of men, is woefully distracted, to the great prejudice of millions of souls, let this be our sure rule. 
Jude. 3.  Whosoever he be that holds the faith which was once delivered to the Saints, agreeing therefore with us in all fundamental Truths, let him be received as a broth●r▪ For th●re is but one Lord, 
Ephes. ●. 5  one Faith, one Baptism: And, 
1 Cor. 3 11.  other foundation can no man lay, then that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ: Let those which will be a devising a new Creed, look for a new Saviour, and hope for another heaven; for us we know whom we have believed: If any man be faulty in the doctrines of superstructure, let us pity and rectify his error, but not abandon his person.  
The Communion of Saints is not so slight that it should be violated by weak mistakings: if any man through ignorance or simplicity, shall strike at the foundation of faith, let us labour by all gentle means, and brotherly conviction, in the spirit of meekness to reclaim him: If after all powerful endeavours he will needs remain, obstinate in his evil way; let us disclaim his fellowship, and not think him worthy of a God-speed. But if he shall not only wilfully undermine the groundwork of Christian faith, by his own damnable opinions, but diffuse his her●ticall blasphemies to the infection of others; let him be cut off by spiritual censures; and so dealt with by public authority that the mischief of his contagion may be seasonably prevented, and himself be made sensible of his heinous crime.  
In all which proceedings, just distinction must be made betwixt the seduced soul, and the pestilent seducer, the one calls for compassion, the other, for severity: So than my brethren let us pity and pray for all that have erred and are deceived; let us instruct the ignorant, convince the gainsaying, avoid the obstinate, restrain the infectious, and punish the self-convicted heresiarch.  
In the fourth place, let us, I beseech you, take heed of being swayed with self-interests in all our designs: These have ever been the bane of the best undertakings, as being not more plausibly insinnuative, then pernicious: For that partial self-love, that naturally lodges in every man's breast, is ready to put us upon those projects, which, under fair pretences, may be extremely prejudicial to the public weal; suggesting not how lawful or expedient they may be for the common, but how beneficial to ourselves; drawing us by insensible degrees to sacrifice the public welfare to our own advantage, and to underwork, and cross the better counsels of more faithful patriots: Whereupon, many flourishing Churches, kingdoms, States, have been brought to miserable ruin: Oh that we could remember, that as all things are ours, so we are not our own; that we have the least interest in ourselves, being infinitely more considerable as parts of a community, theras single persons; that the main end of our being, (next to the glory of our maker) is an universal serviceableness to others: in the attaining whereof, we shall far more eminently advance our own happiness, then by the best of our private self-seeking endeavours.  
But withal, it will be meet for us to consider, that, as we are made to serve all, so only in our own station: There can be no hope of a continued well being without order: There can be no order without a due subordination of degrees, and diversity of vocations; and in vain shall divers vocations be ordained, if all professions shall interfere with each other. It is the prudent and holy charge of the Apostle, 
1 Cor. 7. 2●  Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called. We are all members of the same body, every one whereof hath his proper employment: The head is to direct and govern, the feet to walk, the eyes to see, the ears to hear: How mad would we think that man, that should affect to walk on his head, to hear with his eye, to see with his ear? Neither surely is it less incongruous for men in d●vine and civil administrations, to offer to undertake, and manage each others' function; in their nature and quality no less d●sperate: So then, let us endeavour to advance the common good, as that a pious Zeal may not draw in confusion; and that we may not mistakeingly rear up the walls of Babel, whiles we intend Jerusalem: Not religion only, but policy calls us to encouragement of all useful professions; and of the sacred so much more, as the soul is more precious than all the world beside. Heed therefore must be taken to avoid all means, whereby the study of learning and knowledge may be any way disheartened; as without which the world would soon be overrun with ignorance, & barbarism: All arts therefore, as being in their kind excellent, may justly challenge their own rights, and if they shall want those respects, which are due to them, will suddenly languish: But above all, as Divinity is the Queen of Sciences, so should it be our just shame that whiles her handmaids are mounted on horseback, she should wait on them on foot.  
Fifthly, As it is our greatest honour that the name of Christ is called upon us; so let it, I beseech you, be our care, that our profession be not formal, empty, and barren like the Jewish figtree, abounding with leaves, void of fruit▪ but real, active, fruitful of all good works, and exemplary in an universal obedien●e to the whole will of God: For it is a scandal never to be enough lamented, that any of those who are Saints by calling (such we all are, or should be) should hug some darling sin in their bosom, which at last breaks forth to the shame of the gospel, and to the insultation of Gath and Ascalon: woe be to us if we shall thus cause the name of our God to be ●ill spoken of: There are two many of those, whom I am loath, and sorry to style heathen-Christians; Christians in name, Heathens in conversation: these, as they come not within the compass of my Dedication, (for, alas, how should they love the Lord Jesus, when they know him not?) so I can heartily bewail their condition, who, like Gideon's fleece, continue altogether dry, under so many sweet showers of Grace; wishing unto their souls, even thus late, a sense of the efficacy of that water which was once poured on their faces: These, if they run into all excess of riot, what can be other expected from them? but for us, that have learned to know the great mystery of godliness, and have given up our name, to a strict covenant of obed●ence, if we shall suffer ourselves to be miscarried into any enormous wickedness, we shall cause heaven to blush, and hell to triumph. Oh therefore, let us be so much the more watchful over our ways, as our engagements to the name of our God, are greater, and the danger of our miscarriages more deadly.  
Lastly, let me beseech, and adjure you, in the name of the Lord Jesu, to be careful in matter of Religion, to keep within the due bounds of God's revealed will. A charge which I would to God were not too needful in these last days; wherein, who sees not what Spirits of error are gone forth into the world, for the seducing of simple, and ungrounded souls? Woe is me, what throngs are carried to hell by these devilish impostures? One pretends Visions, and Revelations of new verities, which the world was not hitherto worthy to know; another boasts of newlights of uncouth interpretations, hidden from all former eyes: one despises the dead letter of the scriptures? another distorts it to his own erroneous sense. O the prodiges of damnable, heretical, Atheous fancies, which have hereupon infested the Christian Church; (for which, what good soul doth not mourn in secret?) the danger whereof ye shall happily avoid, if ye shall keep close to the written word of our God which is only able to make you wise to salvation: As our Saviour repelled the devil, so do ye the fanatic spirits of these brainsick men, with, It is written; Let those who would be wiser than God, justly perish in their presumption; My soul for yours, if ye keep you to S. Paul's guard, not to be wise above that which is written. I could easily out of the exuberance of my Christian love overcharg you with multiplicity of holy coun●ses, but I would not take a tedious farewell▪ May the God of heaven bless these, and all other wholesome admonitions to the furtherance of your souls in grace; and may his good spirit, ever lead & guide us in all such ways, as may be pleasing to him, till we happily meet in the participation of that incomprehensible glory, which he hath prepared for all his Saints; till when, farewell from your fellow-pilgrim in this vale of tears,  
Jos. Hall. HIGHAM near NORWICH, Nov. 3. 1651.   

THE INVISIBLE WORLD, Discovered to spiritual Eyes, AND Reduced to useful Meditation. In three Books.  
By JOS. HALL, D.d.b.  
London, Printed by E. Cotes, for John Place at Furnival's inn-gate, 1659.   

The PREFACE.  
AS those that flit from their old home, and betake themselves to dwell in another country, where they are sure to settle; are wont to forget the faces, and fashions whereto they were formerly enured, and to apply themselves to the knowledge and acquaintance of those, with whom they shall afterwards converse; So it is here with me, being to remove from my earthly Tabernacle, wherein I have worn out the few and evil days of my pilgrimage, to an abiding City above, I have desired to acquaint myself with that Invisible world, to which I am going: to enter-know my good God, and his blessed Angels and Saints, with whom I hope to pass an happy eternity. And if by often and serious meditation I have attained (through God's mercy) to any measure of lightsome apprehension of them, and their blissful condition; I thought it could be no other than profitable to my fellow-pilgrims, to have it imparted unto them: And, as knowing we can never be sensible enough of our happiness, unless we know our own dangers, and the woeful miscarriages of others; nor so fully bless our eyes with the sight of heaven, if we cast not some glances upon hell; I have held it requisite to bestow some thoughts upon that dreadful region of darkness, and confusion, that by the former of these, our desires may be whetted to the fruition of their blessedness; and by the other, we may be stirred up to a care of avoiding those paths that lead down to that second death; and to a continual thankfulness unto that merciful God, whose infinite goodness hath delivered us from that pit of horror, and perdition.   

THE INVISIBLE WORLD. The First BOOK.  

SECT. I. That there is an invisible world.  
WHo can think other, but that the great God of heaven loseth much glory by our ignorance? For, how can we give him the honour due to his name, whiles we conceive too narrowly of him, and his works? To know him as he is, is past the capacity of our finite understanding, we must have other eyes to discern that incomprehensible essence; but to see him in his divine emanations, and marvelous works, (which are the back parts of that glorious majesty) is that, whereof we may be capable, and should be ambitious; Neither is there any thing in this world, that can so much import us: For wherefore serves the eye of sense, but to view the goodly frame and furniture of the Creation? wherefore serves the eye of reason and faith, but to see that lively and invisible power, which governs and comprehends it?  
Even this sensible, and material world, if we could conceive aright of it, is enough to amaze the most enlightened reason; for if this globe of earth, in regard of the immense greatness of it, is wont (not unjustly) to be accounted a World, what shall we say of so many thousand stars, that are (for the most part) bigger than it? how can we but admire so many thousand worlds of light, rolling continually over our heads; all made by the omnipotent power; all regularly guided by the infinite providence of the great God? How poorly must that man needs think of the workmanship of the Almighty, that looks upon all these, but as so many Torches, set up in the firmament every evening, only so big as they seem? and with what awful respects must he needs be carried to his Creator, that knows the vastness, and perpetually-constant movings of those lightsome bodies, ruled and upheld only by the mighty word that made them?  
There is store of wonders in the visible, but the spiritual, and intelligible world is that, which is more worthy to take up our hearts; both as we are men, endued with reason, and as regenerate, enlightened by faith; being so much more excellent than the other, by how much more it is removed from all earthly means of apprehension. Brute creatures may behold these visible things, perhaps with sharper eyes than we, but spiritual objects are so utterly out of their reach, as if they had no being: Nearest therefore to beasts are those men, who suffer themselves to be so altogether led by their senses, as to believe nothing but what is suggested by that purblind and unfaithful informer; 
Nulla visibil●a nisi per invisibilia v●dentur: tell mentem quae non videtur, & incassum patebit oculus. Greg.  Let such men doubt whether they have a soul in their body, because their eye never met with it; or that there are any stars in the firmament at noonday, because they appear not; or that there is any air wherein they breath, because nothing appears to them but an insensible vacuity.  
Of all other the Sadduces had been the most dull and sottish heretics that ever were, if (as some have construed them) they had utterly denied the very being of any Spirits; 
Camer. in Act. 23.8.  Sure (as learned Cameron pleads for them) they could not be so senseless; for believing the books of Moses, and being conscious of their own animation, their bosoms must needs convince them of their spiritual inmate; and what but a spirit could enable them to argue against spirits? and how could they hold a God, and no Spirit? it was bad enough that they denied the immortality, and constant subsistence of those Angelical, immaterial substances; an opinion long since hissed out, not of the School of Christianity only, but of the very stalls and sties of the most brutish paganism; although not very long since (as is reported by Hosius, and Prateolus) that cursed Glazier of Gaunt, David George, durst wickedly rake it out of the dust, and of late some sceptics of our own have let fall some suspicious glances this way: Surely, all that know they have souls, must needs believe a world of spirits, which they see not; if from no other grounds, yet out of that analogy, which they cannot but find betwixt this lesser, and that greater world; for as this little world, Man, consists of an outward visible body, and an inward spiritual soul, which gives life, and motion to that organical frame; so possessing all parts that it is wholly in all, and in each part wholly; So must it also be in this great Universe, the sensible and material part whereof, hath being, and moving from those spiritual powers, both supreme and subordinate, which dwell in it, and fill and actuate it. Every illuminated soul therefore looks about him with no other than S. Paul's eyes; whose profession it is, We look not at the things which are seen, 
2 Cor. 4.18  but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.   

SECT. II. The distribution of the Invisible world.  
I Cannot quite mislike the conceit of Reuchlin, and his ●abala, seconded by Galatinus, that as in an egg, the yelk lies in the midst encompassed round with the white, and that again by a film and shell; so the sensible world is enclosed within the intelligible; but withal I must add, that here is not a mere involution only, but a spiritual permeation and inexistence; yet without all mixture, without all confusion; for those pure and simple natures are not capable of mingling with gross, material substances; and the God of Order hath given them their own separate essences▪ offices, operations; as for the managing of their own spiritual commonwealth, within themselves, so for the disposing, governing, and moving of this sensible world: As therefore we shall foully misconceive of a man, if we shall think him to be nothing but a body, because our eyes see no more; so we shall no less grossly err, if beholding this outward fabric, we shall conceive of nothing to be in this vast Universe, but the mere lifeless substance of the heavens, and elements, which runs into our sight; those lively and active powers that dwell in them could not be such, if they were not purely spiritual.  
Here then, above and beyond all worlds, and in this material, and intelligible world, our illuminated eyes meet first with the God of Spirits; the deity incomprehensible, the fountain of all life and being; the infinite and self-existing Essence, one most pure, simple, eternal Act; the absolute, omnipotent, omnipresent Spirit, who in himself is more than a world of worlds, filling & comprehending both the spiritual & sensible world; in comparison of whom, this All is nothing; and but from him had been, and were nothing: 
Omne tempus quo de Deo non cogitat, perdidisse se computat Bern. de spec. mon.  Upon this blessed object, O my soul, may thy thoughts ever dwell; where the more they are fixed, the more shall they find themselves ravished from the regard of all sensible things, and swallowed up with an admiration of that, which they are still further off from comprehending. Next to this All-glorious and infinite spirit, they meet with those immaterial and invisible powers, who receive their original and continuance, their natures and offices from that King of glory; Each one whereof is so mighty, as to make up a world of power alone; each one so knowing, as to contain a world of wisdom, and all of them so innumerably many, that their number is next to infinite; and all this numberless number so perfectly united in one celestial polity, that their entire communion (under the laws and government of their sovereign Creator) makes them a complete world of Spirits, invisibly living and moving both within and above this visible globe of the material world. After these, meet we with the glorified souls of the Just, who now let loose from this prison of clay, enjoy the full liberty of heaven; and being at last, reunited to their then immortal bodies, and to their most glorious head, both are, and possess a world of everlasting bliss.  
Last of all, may thy thoughts fall upon those infernal powers of darkness, the spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places; whose number, might, combination, makes up a dreadful world of evil Angels, conflicting where they prevail not, and tormenting where they overcome; These, together with the reprobate souls, whom they have captived, are the most horrible and woeful prospects of mischief and misery, which either world is subject unto; Now all and every of these, however in respect of largeness, they may well pass for so many several worlds; yet as we are wont to account the whole globe of heaven and earth, and the other enclosed elements (though vast in their several extents) to make up but one sensible world; so shall we (in a desire to reduce all to unity) consider all the entire specifications of spirits, but as ranked in so many regions of one immaterial, and intelligible world.  
Wherefore let us first silently adore (that mundum archetypum) that one transcendent, self-being, and infinite essence, in three most glorious persons, the blessed Deity, which filleth heaven and earth with the majesty of his glory, as vailed with the beams of infiniteness, and hid in an inaccessible light; and let us turn our eyes to the spiritual guard, the invisible attendants of that divine Majesty, without the knowledge and right apprehension whereof, we shall never attain to conceive of their God, and ours, as we ought.  
But, O ye blessed, immortal glorious spirits, who can know you, but he that is of you? alas this soul of mine knows not itself, how shall it know you? Surely, no more can our minds conceive of you, than our eyes can see you: Only, since he that made you hath given us some little glimpse of your subdivine natures, properties, operations, let us weakly as we may, recount them to his glory in yours.   

SECT. III. The Angels of heaven. Their numbers.  
THe good Lord forgive me for that (amongst my other offences) I have suffered myself so much to forget (as his divine presence, so) the presence of his holy Angels; It is I confess my great sin, that I have filled mine eyes with other objects, and have been slack in returning praises to my God, for the continual assistance of those blessed and beneficent spirits, which have ever graciously attended me, without intermission, from the first hour of my conception to this present moment; neither shall ever (I hope) absent themselves from my tutelage, and protection, till they shall have presented my poor soul to her final glory: Oh that the dust and clay were so washed out of my eyes, that I might behold, together with the presence, the numbers, the beauties and excellencies of those my ever-present guardians.  
When we are convinced of the wonderful magnitude of those goodly stars, which we see moving in the firmament, we cannot but acknowledge, that if God had made but one of them, he could never have been enough magnified in his power; but, when our sense joins with our reason, to force upon us withal an acknowledgement of the infinite numbers of those great luminaries; now we are so far to seek of due admiration, that we are utterly lost in the amazement at this stupendious proof of omnipotence. Neither is it otherwise with the invisible, host of heaven: If the power of one Angel be such, that he were able at his maker's appointment, to redact the world to nothing, and the nature of any one so eminent, that it far surmounts any part of the visible Creation, what shall we say to those next-to-infinite numbers of mighty, and majestical spirits, wherewith the great God of heaven hath furnished his throne and footstool? I know not upon what grounds that (by some, 
Brigit. l. Revelat. 4.  magnified) prophetess, could so precisely compute, that if all men should be reckoned up from the first Adam to the last man that shall stand upon the earth, there might be to each man assigned more than ten Angels; Ambrose's account is yet fuller; who makes all mankind to be that one lost sheep in the parable, and the Angels (whose chore the great shepherd left for a time, to come down to this earthly wilderness) to be the ninety and nine: Lo here, wel-near an hundred for one; Yet even that number is poor, 
Dionys. Areopag.  in comparison of the reckoning of him, who pretends to fetch it from the chosen vessel rapt into Paradise; who presumes to tell us there are greater numbers of Angels in every several rank, than there is of the particulars of whatsoever material things in this world; The Bishop of Herbipolis instanceth boldly in stars, in leaves, in spires of grass. 
Fo●ner. de Cust. Ange. Serm. 4.  But, sure I am, had that Dennis of Ariopaguses been in S. Paul's room, and supplied his rapture, he could no more have computed the number of Angels, than the best Arithmetician, standing upon an hill, & seeing a huge Xerxes-like Army swarming in the valley, can give a just reckoning of the number of those heads: Surely, 
Mat. 26.53.  when our Saviour speaks of more than twelve legions of Angels, he doth not say, how many ●ore: If those twelve according to Hieroms (though too short) computation, amount to seventy-two thousand, the more than twelve were doubtless more than many millions; He that made them can tell us; The beloved Disciple in Pathmos, as by inspiration from that God, says, 
Rev. 5. 11.  I beheld, and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the throne, and the Beasts, and the Elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; now the Elders were but 24. and the Beasts were but four; all those other thousands were Angels; and if so many were about his throne, how many do we think were about his missions?  
Before him, the Prophet Daniel (betwixt whom and the Evangelist there is so perfect correspondence, that we may well say, 
Dan. 7.10.  Daniel was the John of the old Testament, and John the Daniel of the new) hath made the like reckoning; Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: But Bildad the Shuhite, 
Job 25.2.  in one word says more than all, Is there any number of his Armies? Lo, his Armies are past all number, how much more his several soldiers? so as it may not perhaps seem hard to believe Dionysius, that the Angels of but one rank, are more than can be comprehended by any Arithmetical number; or Gregory, who determines them numerable only to God that made them, to men innumerable.  
O great God of heaven, how doth this set forth the infinite majesty of thine omnipotent Deity, to be thus attended! we judge of the magnificence of Princes according to the number and quality of their retinue and guard, and other their military powers; and yet each one of these hath an equally absolute life, and being of his own, receiving only a pay from his sovereign; What shall we then think of thee the great King of eternal glory, that hast before thy throne, innumerable hosts of powerful and glorious spirits of thine own making, and upholding? 
Cuique electo ordinarie certum propriumque Angelum qui perpetuus sit ejus custos & comes. Zanch de operibus create.. l. 3. c. 15.  And how safe are we under so many, and so mighty Protectors? It might be perhaps well meant, and is confessed to be seconded with much reverend antiquity, the conceit, that each man hath a special Angel designed for his custody; and if but so, we are secure enough from all the danger of whatsoever hostile machinations; however this may seem some scanting of the bountiful provision of the Almighty, who hath pleased to express his gracious respects to one man in the allotment of many guardians; 
Psal. 91.11.  For if Jacob speak of one Angel, David speaks of more; He shall give his angel's charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways: And even those which have thought good to abet this piece of Platonic Divinity concerning the single Guardianship of Angels, have yet yielded that according to several relations, each one hath many spiritual keepers: Insomuch as the forecited 
* Ex quo fa●ile colligitur, ex vobis unumquemque habere plus quam decem Angelos. Forner. de Cust●d. Ang. Serm. 5. p. 56.  Fornerus, late B●shop of Wirtzburg, durst assure his auditors, that each of them had ten Angels at least assigned to his custody; according to the respects of their subordinate interests, besides their own person, of their Family, Parish, Fraternity, City, Diocese, country, Office, Church, World; Yet even this computation is niggardly and 
* 
How scant then is the account of the great & voluminous Abulensis, who upon Mat. 18. v. 60. determines that the blessed Virgin had two Angel-keepers; one, the most noble of the Angeli●●ll order, which guarded her all her life, the other Gabriel an archangel of the second Order, who attended her from the time of Christ's conception, until his passion. Barrad. l 6. c. 10.  
As also that of Degrassalius: that the French King hath two Angel-guardians, one in regard of his private person, another in respect to his royal Dignity. Degrassal. l. 1. Jure 20. Regal. Franciae.   pinching, since the abundant store and bounty of the Almighty can as well afford Centuries, as Decades of Guardians; Howsoever, why should it not be all one to us, since there is no less safety in the hands of one than many; no less care of us from many, then from one? should but one Angel guard millions of men, his power could secure them no less than a single charge; but now that we are guarded with millions of Angels, what can the gates of hell do? But what number soever be employed about us; sure I am that (together with them) those that attend the throne of their maker, make up no less (as Nazianzen justly accounts them) than a world of spirits: A world so much more excellent than this visible, by how much it is more abstracted from our weak senses: O ye blessed spirits, ye are ever by me, ever with me, ever about me; I do as good as see you for I know you to be here; I reverence your glorious persons, I bless God for you; I walk awfully because I am ever in your eyes, I walk confidently because I am ever in your hands. 
M. blunt's Voyage to the Levant.  How should I be ashamed that in this piece of Theology, I should be outbid by very Turks, whose Priests shut up their Devotions with an precatory mention of your presence, as if this were the upshot of all blessings; I am sure it is that, wherein, next to my God and Saviour, I shall ever place my greatest comfort and confidence, neither hath earth or heaven any other besides, that looks like it.   

SECT. IV. The power of Angels.  
MUltitudes even of the smallest and weakest creatures have been able to produce great effects: The swarms of but Flies and Lice could amate the great and mighty King of Egypt: all his forces could not free him, and his Peers from so impotent adversaries: but when multitude is seconded with strength, how must it needs be irresistible? so it is in these blessed spirits, even their omnipotent maker (who best knows what is derived from him) styles them by his Apostle, 
Ephes. 3.10. Colos. 2.10. Ps. 103.10.  Powers, and by his Psalmist, mighty ones in strength: A small force seems great to the weak, but that power which is commended by the Almighty, must needs be transcendently great: we best judge of powerfulness by the effects; How suddenly had one Angel dispatched every first-born in Egypt, and after them, the hundred fourscore and five thousand of the proud Assyrian Army: 
2 King. 19.35.  and if each man had been a Legion, with what ease had it been done by that potent spirit? Neither are they less able to preserve then to destroy; That of Aquinas is a great word, One Angel is of such power, that be were able to govern all the corporeal creatures of the world: Justly was it exploded, as the wild heresy of Simon Magus and his clients, the Meand●ians, that the Angels made the world; No, this was the sole work of him that made them; but, if we say that it pleases God by their ministration to sway and order the marvelous affairs of this great Universe, we shall not, I suppose, vary from truth; If we look to the highest part thereof, Philosophers have gone so far as to teach us, (that which is seconded by the allowance of some great Divines) that these blessed Intelligences are they by whose agency under their Almighty Creator, the heavens and the glorious luminaries thereof continue their ever-constant and regular motions; And, if there fall out any preternatural immutations in the elements, any strange concussations of the earth, any direful prodigies in the sky, whither should they be imputed but to these mighty Angels, whom it pleaseth the most high God to employ in these extraordinary services? That dreadful magnificence which was in the delivering of the Law on Mount Sinai, in fire, smoke, thunderings, lightnings, voices, earthquakes, whence was it but by the operation of Angels? And indeed as they are the nearest both in nature and place, to the majesty of the highest, so it is most proper for them to participate most of his power, and to exercise it in obedience to his sovereignty; As therefore he is that infinite Spirit, who doth all things, and can do no more than all, so they (as his immediate subordinates) are the means whereby he executeth his illimited power in and upon this whole created world. 
Joel 3.11.  Whence it is, that in their glorious appearances, they have been taken for Jehovah himself, 
Gen. 16.3. Judg. 13.27. Gen. 22.14.  by Hagar, by Manoah and his wife, yea, by the better eyes of the Father of the faithful.  
Now, Lord, what a protection hast thou provided for thy poor worms, and not men, creeping here on thine earth; and what can we fear in so mighty, and sure hands? He that passeth with a strong convoy through a wild and perilous desert, scorns the danger of wild beasts or robbers, no less than if he were in a strong tower at home; so do we the onsets of the powers of darkness, whiles we are thus invincibly guarded.  
When God promised Moses that an Angel should go before Israel, and yet withal threatened the subduction of his own presence, I marvel not if the holy man were no less troubled, then if they had been left destitute and guardless, and that he ceased not his importunity, till he had won the gracious engagement of the Almighty for his presence in that whole expedition: For what is the greatest Angel in heaven without his maker? But let thy favour, O God, order and accompany the deputation of the lowest of thine Angels; what can all the troops of hell hurt us? Assoon may the walls of heaven be scaled, and thy throne deturbed, as he can be foiled that is defenced with thy power: Were it possible to conceive that the Almighty should be but a looker on in the conflict of spirits, we know that the good Angels have so so much advantage of their strength as they have of their station; neither could those subdued spirits stand in the encounter; but now, he that is strong in our weakness, is strong in their strength for us: blessed be God for them, as the Author of them, and their protection; Blessed be they under God as the means used by him for our protection, and blessings.   

SECT. V. The knowledge of Angels.  
IF Samson could have had his full strength in his mill, when he wanted his eyes, it would have little availed him; such is power without knowledge; but where both of these concur in one, how can they fail of effect? Whether of these is more eminent in the blessed spirits, it is not easy to determine; so perfectly knowing are they, as that the very heathen Philosophers have styled them by the name of Intelligences, as if their very being were made up of understanding; Indeed what is there in this whole compass of the large Universe that is hid from their eyes? only the closet of man's heart is locked up from them, as reserved solely to their maker; yet so, as that ●hey can by some insensible chinks of those secret notifications which fall from us, look into them also; all other things, whether secrets of nature, or closest counsels or events, are as open to their sight as the most visible objects are to ours: They do not (as we mortals are wont) look through the dim and horny spectacle o● senses, or understand by the mediation of Phantasms: but rather, as clear mirrors, they receive at once the full representations of all intelligible things; having besides that connatural light, which is universally in them all, certain special illuminations from the Father of lights. Even we men think we know something, neither may our good▪ God lose the thank of his bounty this way: 
Arist. Me●aph●s. l. 2.  but alas, he that is reputed to have known most of all the heathen, whom 
* B●navent. Vulcan. pra●f●t. in lib. de mundo.  some have styled the Genius of nature could confess that the clearest understanding is to those things which are most manifest, but as a bat's eyes to the Sun: Do we see but a worm crawling under our feet, we know not what that is, which in itself gives it a being; 
L. Bacon in his natural Hist.  Do we hear but a Bee humming about our ears, the greatest Naturalist cannot know whether that noise come from within the body, or from the mouth, or from the wings of that fly: How can we then hope, or pretend to know those things which are abstruse, and remote? But these heavenly spirits do not only know things as they are in themselves, and in their inward and immediate causes, but do clearly see the first and universal cause of all things; and that in his glorious essence; how much more do they know our shallow dispositions, affections, inclinations, (which peer out of the windows of our hearts) together with all perils, and events that are incident unto us?  
We walk therefore amids not more able than watchful overseers; and so are we looked thorough in all our ways, as if heaven were all eyes; Under this blessed vigilancy, if the powers of hell can either surprise us with suddenness, or circumvent us with subtlety, let them not spare to use their advantage. But oh ye tutelar spirits, ye well know our weakness and their strength, our silliness and their craft, their deadly machinations and our miserable obnoxiousness; neither is your love to markinde, and fidelity to your maker, any whit less than your knowledge, so as your charge can no more miscarry under your hands and eyes, than yourselves. As you do always enjoy the beatifical vision of your maker, so your eye is never off from his little ones your blessedness is no more separable from our safety, than you from your blessedness.   

SECT. VI. The employments and operations of Angels.  
EVen while we see you not, O ye blessed spirits, we know what ye do: He that made you hath told us your task: As there are many millions of you attending the all-glorious throne of your Creator, and singing perpetual Hallelujahs to him in the highest heavens; so there are innumerable numbers of you employed in governing and ordering the creature; in guarding the elect, in executing the commands which ye receive from the Almighty; what variety is here of your assistance? One while ye lead us in our way, as ye did Israel: another while ye instruct us, as ye did Daniel: one while ye fight for us, as ye did for Joshua, and Judas Maccabaeus: another while ye purvey for us, as for Elias: one while ye fit us to our holy vocation, as ye did to Esay: another while ye dispose of the opportunities of our calling for good, as ye did of Philip's to the Eunuch: one while ye foretell our danger, as to Lot, to Joseph and Mary: another while ye comfort our affliction, as to Hagar: one while ye oppose evil projects against us, as to Balaam: another while ye will be striven with for a blessing, as with Jacob: one while ye resist our offensive courses, 
Exod. 4.  as to Moses; another while ye encourage us in our devotions, as ye did Paul, and Silas, and Cornelius: one while ye deliver from durance, as Peter: another while ye preserve us from danger and death, as the three children: one while ye are ready to restrain our presumption, as the Cherub before the gate of Paradise: another while to excite our courage, as to Elias and Theodosius: one while to refresh and cheer us in our sufferings, as to the Apostles; another while to prevent our sufferings, as to Jacob, in the pursuit of Laban and Esau, to the Sages in the pursuit of Herod: one while ye cure our bodies, as at the pool of Bethesda; another while ye carry up our souls to glory, as ye did to Lazarus: It were endless to instance in all the gracious offices which ye perform; Certainly there are many thousand events, wherein common eyes see nothing but nature, which yet are effected by the ministration of Angels: when Abraham sent his servant to procure a wife for his son, from amongst his own cognation; the messenger saw nothing but men like himself; but Abraham saw an Angel fore-contriving the work; 
Gen. 24.7.  God (saith he) shall send his Angel before thee, that thou mayest take a wife thence; when the Israelites forcibly by dint of sword expelled the Canaanites, and Amorites, and the other branded nations, nothing appeared but their own arms; but the Lord of hosts could say, I will send mine Angel before thee, by whom I shall drive them thence: Balaam saw his ass disorderly starting in the path; he that formerly had seen Visions, now sees nothing but a wall, and a way, but in the mean time, his ass, (who for the present had more of the Prophet than his Master) could see an Angel and a sword. The Sodomites went groping in the street for Lot's door, and miss it; they thought of nothing but some sudden dizziness of brain, that disappointed them, we know it was an Angel that struck them with blindness: Nothing appeared when the Egyptian first-born were struck dead in one night; the Astrologers would perhaps say they were Planet-struck, we know it was done by the hand of an Angel: Nothing was seen at the pool of Bethesda, but a moved water, when the sudden cures were wrought, which perhaps might be attributed to some beneficial constellation; we know that an Angel descended, and made the water thus sanative: G●hezi saw his master strangely preserved from the Aramite troops, but had not his eyes been opened by the prophet's prayers, he had not seen whence that aid came: Neither is it otherwise in the frequent experiments of our life; Have we been raised up from deadly sicknesses, when all natural helps have given us up? God's Angels have been our secret physicians; Have we had instinctive intimations of the death of some absent friends, which no human intelligence hath bidden us to suspect, who but our Angels hath wrought it? have we been preserved from mortal dangers which we could not tell how by our providence to have evaded? our invisible Guardians have done it.  

Qualiter pueri inter tot infantiae discrimina, &c. Gers. Serm. de Angel.  I see no reason to dislike that observation of Gerson; Whence is it (saith he) that little children are conserved from so many perils of their infancy; fire, water, falls, suffocations, but by the agency of Angels? Surely, where we find a probability of second causes in nature, we are apt to confine our thoughts from looking higher; yet even there many times are unseen hands: had we seen the house fall upon the heads of Jobs children, we should perhaps have attributed it to the natural force of a vehement blast, when now we know it was the work of a spirit: Had we seen those thousands of Israel falling dead of the plague, we should have complained of some strange infection in the air, when David saw the Angel of God acting in that mortality: human reason is apt to be injuriously saucy, in ascribing those things to an ordinary course of natural causes, which the God of nature doth by supernatural agents.  
A master of Philosophy travelling with others on the way▪ when a fearful thunder-storm arose, checked the fear of his fellows, and discoursed to them of the natural reasons of that uproar in the clouds, and those sudden flashes wherewith they seemed (out of the ignorances of causes) to be too much affrighted; in the midst of his philosophical discourse, he was strucken dead with that dreadful eruption which he slighted; what could this be but the finger of that God, who will have his works rather entertained with wonder, and trembling, then with curious scanning; Neither is it otherwise in those violent Huracans, devouring earthquakes, and more than ordinary tempests, and fiery apparitions which we have seen and heard of; for however there be natural causes given of the usual events of this kind, yet nothing hinders, but that the Almighty for the manifestation of his power and justice, may set spirits whether good or evil, on work to do the same things sometimes with more state and magnificence of horror: like as we see Frogs bred ordinarily, both out of putrefaction, and generation, and yet (when it was) for a plague to Egypt, they were supernaturally produced; Hail; an ordinary meteore; murrain of cattle an ordinary disease, yet for a plague to obdured Pharaoh miraculously wrought.  
Neither need there be any great difficulty in discerning when such like events run in a natural course, and when spirits are actors in them; the manner of their operation, the occasions and effects of them shall soon descry them to a judicious eye; for when we shall find that they do manifestly deviate from the road of nature, and work above the power of secondary causes, it is easy to determine them to be of an higher efficiency. I could instance irrefragrably in several tempests and thunderstorms (which to the unspeakable terror of the inhabitants) were, in my time, seen heard, felt, in the 
In the Churches of Foye Totnesse, & Withicomb. Of the same kind were those prodigious tempests at Milan Anno 1521. and at Mechlin Aug. 7. Anno 1527.  Western parts; wherein the translocation, and transportation of huge massy stones, and irons of the Churches above the possibility of natural distance, together with the strange preservation of the persons assembled, with other accidents sensibly accompanying those astonishing works of God, (still fresh in the minds of many) showed them plainly to be wrought by a stronger hand than natures. 
* Nestoires prodigieuses de P. Boaistuan. cap. 8. Of the same kind was that fearful Tempest which in the 4 year of K. Will. Rufus, blew down 600 houses in London, and reaving Bow Church carried away six beams of 27 foot long, and struck them into the earth (the streets being then unpaved) so deep, tha● o●ly four foot remained above ground. Chron. of S. Rob. Baker of the reign of Will. 2.  And whither else should we ascribe many events which ignorance teacheth us to wonder at in silence: If murders be descried by the fresh bleeding of cold, and almost putrefied carcases: If a man by some strong instinct be warned to change that lodging, which he constantly held for some years, and finds his wonted sleeping place that night crushed with the unexpected fall of an unsuspected contignation: If a man distressed with care for the missing of an important evidence (
† M. Will. Cook, sen. of Waltham holy cross.  such a one I have known) shall be informed in his dream, in what hole of his Dove-cote he shall find it hid: If a man without all observation of Physical criticisms, shall receive and give intelligence many days before, what hour shall be his last, to what cause can we attribute these, but to our attending Angels? 
Marc. Aurel. Antoninus his Meditat, concerning himself, l. 1. c. 17. The like he reports of Chryses, ibid.  If a man shall in his dream (as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus professes) receive the prescript of the remedy of his disease, which the physicians it seems could not cure; whence can this be but by the suggestion of spirits? And surely, since I am convinced that their unfelt hands are in many occurrences of my life; I have learned so much wit and grace, as rather to yield them too much then too little stroke in ordering all my concernments: O ye blessed spirits, many things I know ye do for me, which I discern not, whiles ye do them; but after they are done: and many things ye may do more which I know not; I bless my God and yours, as the author of all ye do; I bless you as the means of all that is done by you for me.   

SECT. VII. The Degrees and Orders of Angels.  
HEaven hath nothing in it but perfection; but even perfection itself hath degrees as the glorified souls, so the blessed Angels have their heights of excellency and glory: He will be known for the God of Order, observeth no doubt a most exact order in his Court of heaven, nearest to the residence of his Majesty. Equality hath no place, either in earth or in hell; we have no reason to seek it in heaven. He that was rapt into the third heaven can tell us of Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Angels and archangels in that region of blessedness. We cannot be so simple, as to think these to be but one class of spirits; doubtless they are distinctions of divers orders: But what their several ranks, offices, employments are, he were not more wise that could tell, than he is bold that dare speak: What modest indignation can forbear stamping at the presumption of those men, who, as if upon Domingo Gonsales his engine, they had been mounted by his Gansaes from the Moon to the empyreal heaven, and admitted to be the heralds, or masters of ceremonies in that higher world, have taken upon them to marshal these angelical spirits into their several rooms; proportioning their stations, dignities, services, according to the model of earthly Courts; disposing them into Ternions of three general Hierarchies, the first relating to the immediate attendance of the Almighty; the other two to the government of the Creature, both general, and particular. In the first, of assistants, placing the Seraphim as Lords of the chamber; 
Vt Commensales Deo, Forner. Ser. 4. de Cust. A●g. or as Cassaneus, Cubicularii & servi●utes, Throni Glor. mund 4 part.  cherubin, as Lords of the cabinet-council; Thrones as entire Favourites, in whom the Almighty placeth his rest.  
In the second of universal Regency; finding Dominions to be the great Officers of State, who, as chancellors, Marshals, Treasurers, govern the affairs of the world, Mights, to be the Generals of the heavenly Militia: Powers, as the Judges Itinerant, that serve for general retributions of good and evil.  
In the third of special government, placing Principalities as rulers of several Kingdoms and Provinces; Archangels, as guardians to several Cities and countries; 
Forner. de Custod. Ang. Serm. 5.  and lastly, Angels as guardians of several persons: And withal presuming to define the differences of degrees, in each order above other, in respect of the goodliness, and excellency of their nature; making the archangels no less than ten times to surpass the beauty of Angels; Principalities, twenty times above the archangels; Powers, forty times more than Principalities: Mights, fifty more than Powers: Domininions, sixty above Mights: Thrones, seventy above Dominions: cherubin, eighty above thrones: Seraphim, ninety times exceeding the cherubin. For me, I must crave leave to wonder at this boldness: and profess myself as far to seek whence this learning should come, as how to believe it: I do verily believe there are divers orders of celestial spirits: I believe they are not to be believed that dare to determine them: 
Compare Ephes. 1.21. with Colos. 1.16.  especially when I see him that was rapt into the third heaven, varying the order of their places in his several mentions of them: 
S. Matild. l. Revel. c. 54. Citat. etiam a Forter.  Neither can I trust to the Revelation of that Sainted prophetess who hath ranged the degrees of the beatitude of glorified souls, into the several chores of these heavenly Hierarchies, according to their dispositions, and demeanours here on earth; admitting those who have been charitably helpful to the poor, sick, strangers, into the orb of Angels: Those who have given themselves to meditation and prayer, to the rank of Archangels; those who have vanquished all offensive lusts in themselves, to the order of Principalities; to the height of Powers, those, whose care and vigilance hath restrained from evil, and induced to good such as have been committed to their oversight and governance. To the place of Mights, those who for the honour of God, have undauntedly and valiantly suffered; and whose patience hath triumphed over evils: To the company of Dominions those who prefer poverty to riches, and devoutly conform their wills in all things to their Makers: To the society of Thrones, those, who do so enure themselves to the continual contemplation of heavenly things, as that they have disposed their hearts to be a fit resting place for the Almighty; To the honour of cherubin, those who convey the benefit of their heavenly meditations unto the souls of others: Lastly, to the highest eminence of Seraphim, those who love God with their whole heart, and their neighbour for God, and their enemies in God; and feel no wrongs but those which are done to their Maker.  
I know not whether this soaring conceit be more seemingly pious, then really presumptuous; since it is evident enough, that these graces do incur into each other, and are not possible to be severed: He that loves God cannot choose but be earnestly desirous to communicate his graces unto others, cannot but have his heart taken up with divine contemplation; the same man cannot but overlook earthly things, and courageously suffer for the honour of his God: Shortly, he cannot but be vigilant over his own ways, and helpful unto others: Why should I presume to divide those virtues, or rewards which God will have inseparably conjoined? And what a strange confusion were this, in stead of an heavenly order of remuneration? Sure I am, that the least degree both of Saints and Angels is blessedness: But for those stairs of Glory, it were too ambitious in me to desire either to climb, or know them: It is enough for me to rest in the hope that I shall once see them; in the mean time, let me be learnedly ignorant, and incuriously devout, silently blessing the power and wisdom of my infinite Creator, who knows how to honour himself by all these glorious, and unrevealed subordinations.   

SECT. VIII. The apparitions of Angels.  
WEre these celestial spirits, though never so many, never so powerful, never so knowing, never so excellently glorious, mere strangers to us, what were their number, power, knowledge, glory unto us? I hear of the great riches, state and magnificence of some remote Eastern Monarchs, what am I the better, whiles in this distance their port and affairs are not capable of any relation to me? To me it is all one not to be, and not to be concerned: Let us therefore diligently inquire, what mutual communion there is, or may be betwixt these blessed spirits and us.  
And first, nothing is more plain, then that the Angels of God have not always been kept from mortal eyes under an invisible concealment, but sometimes have condescended so low, as to manifest their presence to men in visible forms, not natural but assumed. I confess I have not faith enough to believe many of those apparitions that are pretended. I could never yet know what other to think of 
* Ad nutum & arbitrium sibi assistentis Daemonis vel declinabat negotia, vel petebat. Minut. Foelicis Octav.  Socrates his Genius; which (as himself reports) was wont to check him, when he went about any unmee● enterprise, and to forward him in good: For the modern times, it is too hard to credit the report of Douai letters concerning our busy neighbour P●re Cotton, 
Duac. 18. Febr. 1627. ex literis Pet. Rav.  that he had ordinary conference and conversation with Angels, both his own tutelar, and those general of Provinces: If so, what need was there for him to have propounded fifty questions, partly of Divinity, partly of Policy, to the resolution of a demoniac? Who can be so fondly credulous, 
Forn. Ser. 5.  as to believe that Jo. Carrera a young father of the Society, had a daily companion of his angel in so familiar a fashion, as to propound his doubts to that secret friend, to receive his answers, to take his advice upon all occasions; to be raised by him every morning from his bed, to his early devotions; till once delaying caused, for a time, an intermission; Or that the aged Cappuchin Franciscus de Bergamo (noted for the eleven precious stones which were found in his gall) had for eight years together before his death, the assistance of an Angel in human shape for the performing of his canonical hours; 
Ignat. Loiol. Xavi●r. ●her●si●. Isidore. Po●ippus ●●r●us. 4 〈◊〉 Ma 〈◊〉 Anno 16●●.  Or, that the Angels helped their S. Gudwal, and S. Oswald Bishop of Worcester to say his mass; Or▪ that Isidore the late Spanish Peasant (newly Sainted amongst good company by Greg. the 15.) serving an hard master, had an angel to make up his daily task at his plough, whiles the good soul was at his public devotions; like as another Angel supplied Felix, the Lay Cappuchin, in tending his Cattle: Or that Francisca Romana (lately canonised) had two Celestial spirits, visibly attending her, the one of the order of Archangels, which never left her: the other of the fourth order of Angels, who frequently presented himself to her view: their attire, sometimes white, sometimes blue, purple more rarely; their tresses of hair, long, and golden, as the over-credulous Bishop of Wirtzburge reports from Gulielmus Baldesanus, not without many improbable circumstances; these and a thousand more of the s●me bran, find no more belief with me, than that story, which Franciscus Albertinus relates out of Baronius, as done here at home; that in the year 1601. in England, there was an Angel seen upon one of our Altars, (and therefore more likely to be known in our own Island, then beyond the Alps) in a visible form, with a naked sword in his hand, which he glitteringly brandished up and down, foining sometimes, and sometimes striking; thereby threatening so long ago an instant destruction to this kingdom. And indeed, why should we yield more credit to these pretenders of apparitions, then to Adelbertus the German Heres●arch, condemned in a council of Rome, by Pope Zacharie, who gave no less confidently out, that his Angel-guardian appeared daily to him, and imparted to him many divine Revelations, and directions? or if there be a difference pleaded in the relations, where or how shall we find it?  
This we know, that so sure as we see men, so sure we are that holy men have seen Angels; Abraham saw Angels in his Tent door: Lot saw Angels in the Gate of Sodom: Hagar in the wilderness of Beersheba: Jacob in the way: Moses in the bush of Horeb: Manoah and his wife in the field: Gideon in his threshing flore: David by the threshing flore of Araunah: What should I mention the Prophets, Elijah, Elisha, Esay, Daniel, Zachary, Ezekiel, and the rest? In the new Testament, Joseph, Mary, Zachariah the father of John Baptist, the shepherds, Mary Magdalen, the gazing Disciples at the Mount of Olives, Peter, Philip, Cornelius, Paul, John the Evangelist, were all blessed with the sight of Angels. In the succeeding times of the Church Primitive, I dare believe that good Angels were no whit more sparing of their presence for the comfort of holy Martyrs and Confessors under the pressure of tyranny for the dear name of their Saviour: 
Theodor. l. 3. c. 11.  I doubt not but constant Theodorus saw and felt the refreshing hand of the Angel, no less than he reported to Julian his persecutor: I doubt not but the holy Virgins, Theophila, Agnes, Lucia, Cecilia, and others, saw the good Angels protectors of their chastity. As one that hath learned in these cases to take the midway betwixt distrust, and credulity; I can easily yield that those retired Saints of the prime ages of the Church had sometimes such heavenly companions, for the consolation of their forced solitude; But withal, I must have leave to hold that the el●er the ●ch grew, the more rare was the use of these apparitions, as of other miraculous actions, and events: Not that the arm of our God is shortened, or his care and love to his beloved ones, any whit abated: but for that his Church is now in this long process of time settled, through his gracious providence, in an ordinary way.  
Like as it was with his Israelites, who whiles they were in their longsome passage, were miraculously preserved, and protected, but when they came once to be fixed in the land of promise, their Angelical sustenance ceased; they then must purvey for their own food, and either till, or famish.  
Now then in these later ages of the Church, to have the visible apparition of a good angel, it is a thing so geason and uncouth, that it is enough for all the world to wonder at: Some few instances our times have been known to yield: Amongst others, that is memorable which Philip Melanchton as an eyewitness reports. Simon Grynaeus a learned and holy man, coming from Heidelburg to Spire; was desirous to hear a certain Preacher in that City, who in his Sermon (it seems) did then let fall-some erroneous propositions of Popish doctrine, much derogatory from the majesty and truth of the Son of God; wherewith Grynaeus being not a little offended, craved speedy conference with the Preacher, and laying before him the falsehood and danger of his doctrines, exhorted him to an abandoning, and retractation of those misopinions; the Preacher gave good words and fair semblance to Grynaeus, desiring further and more particular conference with him, each imparted to other their names and lodgings; yet inwardly, as being stung with that just reproof, he resolved a revenge by procuring the imprisonment, and (if he ●ight) the death of so sharp a censurer: Grynaeus misdoubting nothing, upon his return to his lodging, reports the passages of the late conference to those who sat at the Table with him; amongst whom Melancthon being one, was called out of the Room to speak with a stranger, newly come into the house; going forth accordingly, he finds a grave old man of a goodly countenance; seemly, and richly attired; who in a friendly and grave manner tells him, that within one hour, there would come to their inn, certain Officers, as from the King of the Romans to attach Grynaeus, and to carry him to prison; willing him to charge Grynaeus, with all possible speed to flee out of Spires; and requiring Melancthon to see that this advantage were not neglected; which said, the old man vanished out of his sight: Instantly Melancthon returning to his companions, recounted unto them the words of this strange Monitor; and hastened the departure of Grynaeus accordingly; who had no sooner boated himself on the Rhine, than he was eagerly searched for at his said lodging; 
Goulart. Histoir mem'r. ex Melanct. in Dan. c. 20.  That worthy Divine in his Commentary upon Daniel, both relates the story, and acknowledges God's fatherly providence in sending this angel of his, for the rescue of his faithful servant: Others, though not many of this kind, are reported by Simon Goulartius in his collection of admirable and memorable histories of our time; whither for brevity sake I refer my Reader.  
But more often hath it fallen out, that evil spirits have visibly presented themselves in the glorious forms of good Angels; as to Simeon Stylites, to Pachomius, to Valens the Monk, to Rathodus Duke of Freezland, to Macarius, to Gertrude in Westphalia, with many others; as we find in the reports of Ruffinus Vincentius, Caesarius Palladius: and the like delusions may still be set on foot, whiles Satan, who loves to transform himself into an angel of Light, laboureth by these means to noursle silly souls in superstition: too many whereof have swallowed the bait, though others have descried the book: 
Bromiard. Sum. praedicant. v. Humilitas.  Amongst the rest, I like well the humility of that hermit, into whose Cell, when the devil presented himself, in a goodly and glittering form, and told him that he was an angel sent to him from God; the hermit turned him off with this plain answer, See thou whence thou comest; for me, I am not worthy to be visited with such a guest as an Angel.  
But the trade that we have with good spirits is not now driven by the eye, but is like to themselves, spiritual: Yet not so, but that even in bodily occasions, we have many times insensible helps from them in such manner, as that by the effects, we can boldly say, Here hath been an Angel though we saw him not.  
Of this kind was that (no less than miraculous) cure, which at S. 
S. Maternus.  Madernes in Cornwall, was wrought upon a poor Cripple 
* One John Trelille.  whereof (besides the attestation of many hundreds of the neighbours) I took a strict and personal examination, in that 
* At Whitsuntide.  last visitation which I either did, or ever shall hold: This man, that for sixteen years together was fain to walk upon his hands, by reason of the close contraction of the sinews of his legs, was, (upon three monitions in his dream to wash in that well) suddenly so restored to his limbs, that I saw him able both to walk, and to get his own maintenance; I found here was neither art nor collusion, the thing done, the Author invisible. 
Sim. Goular. ex J. Manlio.  The like may we say of John Spangenberge pastor of Northeuse; no sooner was that man stepped out of his house, with his family to go to the Bayns, than the house fell right down in the place: Our own experience at home is able to furnish us with divers such instances: How many have we known that have fallen from very high towers, and into deep pits, past the natural possibility of hope, who yet have been preserved not from death only, but from hurt: whence could these things be, but by the secret aid of those invisible helpers? It were easy to fill Volumes with particulars of these kinds; but the main care, and most officious endeavours of these blessed spirits are employed about the better part, the soul; in the instilling of good motions; enlightening the understanding, repelling of temptations, furthering our opportunities of good, preventing occasions of sin, comforting our sorrows, quickening our dulness, encouraging our weakness; and lastly, after all careful attendance here below, conveying the souls of their charge, to their glory, and presenting them to the hands of their faithful Creator.  
It is somewhat too hard to believe, that there have been ocular witnesses of these happy Convoys; Who lists may credit that which Hierom tells us, that Antony the Hermit saw the soul of his partner in that solitude (Paul) carried up by them to heaven; that Severinus Bishop of Colein saw the soul of S. Martin thus transported, as Gregory reports in his Dialogues; That Benedict saw the soul of Germanus in the form of a fiery globe thus conveyed; What should I speak of the souls of the holy martyrs, Tiburtius, Valerian, Maximus, Marcellinus, Justus, Quintinus, Severus, and others: we may if we please (we need not unless we list) give way to these reports, to which our faith obliges us not: In these cases we go not by eyesight: but we are well assured the soul of Lazarus was by these glorious spirits carried up into the bosom of Abraham, neither was this any privilege of his above all other the Saints of God; all which as they land in one common harbour of blessedness, so they all participate of one happy means of portage.   

SECT. ix.. The respects which we owe to the Angels.  
SUch are the respects of good Angels to us; now what is ours to them? It was not amiss said of one, that the life of Angels is political, full of intercourse with themselves and with us: What they return to each other in the course of their Theophanies, is not for us to determine; but since their good offices are thus assiduous unto us, it is meet we do inquire what duties are requirable from us to them. 
Bern. in Psal. Qui habi●at.  Devout Bernard is but too liberal in his decision, that we owe to these beneficent spirits reverence for their presence, devotion for their love; and trust for their custody. Doubtless, we ought to be willing to give unto them so much as they will be willing to take from us: if we go beyond these bounds, we offend, and alienate them: to derogate from them is not so heinous in their account, as to overho●our them. S. John proffers an humble geniculation to the angel, and is put off, 
Rev. 19.10.  with a See thou do it not, I am thy fellow servant: The excesses of respects to them, 
Hieron. Quest ●o●d Al●g●s●m.  have turned to abominable impiety; which howsoever Jerome seems to impute to the Jews, eve● since the prophet's time, yet Simon Magus was the first that we find guilty of this impious flattery of the Angels; who fondly holding that the world was made by them, could not ●hink fit to present them with less than divine honour: H● cursed choler, Menander, (whose error Prateolus wrongfully fathers upon Aristotle) succeeding him in that wicked heresy, as Eusebius tells us, left behind him Saturnius, not inferior to him in this frenzy; who (as Tertullian and Philastrius report him) fancied together with his mad fellows, that seven Angels made the world, not acquainting God with their work: What should I name blasphemous Cerinthus, who durst disparage Christ in comparison with Angels? Not altogether so bad were those heretics (though bad enough) which took their ancient denomination from the Angels; 
Angelici.  who professing true Christianity and detestation of Idolatry, (as having learned that God only is to be worshipped properly) yet reserved a certain kind of adoration to the blessed Angels; Against this opinion and practice, the great doctor of the Gentiles seems to bend his style, 
Prateolus ●l●nch. v. Angelici.  in his Epistle to the Colossians, forbidding a voluntary humility in worshipping of Angels; whether grounded upon the superstition of ancient Jews, as Hierom and Anselm; or upon the ethnic philosophy of some Platonic, as Estius and Cornel●us à Lapide imagine; or upon the damnable conceits of the Simonians and Cerinthians, as Tertullian, we need not much to inquire; nothing is more clear than the Apostles inhibition▪ afterward seconded by the Synod of Laodicea; 
Rejecta expositio a Pontificiis, ut non modo periculosa sed & falsa. Vid. Binium in notis in Pium pap●n Tom. 1. pag. 103.  whereto yet Theodoret's noted Commentary would seem to give more light▪ who tells us that upon the ill use made of the giving of the ●aw by the hands of Angels, there was an error of old maintained, of Angel-worship, which still continued in Phrygia and Pisidia, so that a synod was hereupon assembled at Laodicea, the chief City of Phrygia; which by a direct Canon forbade praying to Angels; a practice (saith he) so settled amongst them that even to this day there are to be seen amongst them, and their neighbours the Oratories of S. Mi●hael.  
Here then was this mishumility, that they thought it too much boldness to come ●mmediately to God, but that we must first make way to his favour by the mediation of Angels; a testimony so pregnant, that I wonder not if Caranza flee into corners; 
Reading it Angulos instead of Angelos.  and all the fautors of Angel-worship be driven to hard shifts to avoid it: But what do I with controversies? This devotion we do gladly profess to owe to good Angels, that though we do not pray unto them, yet we do pray to God for the favour of their assistance, and protection; and praise God for the protection that we have from them: That faithful Patriarch, of whom the whole Church of God receives denomination, knew well, what he said, when he gave this blessing to his grandchildren: The angel that redeemed me from all evil, 
Gen. 48.19  bless the children: whether this were an interpretative kind of imploration, as Becanus and Lorichius contend; or whether (as is no less probable) this Angel were not any created power, but the great angel of the Covenant; the same which Jacob wrestled with before, for a blessing upon himself, as Athanasius and Cyril well conceive it, I will not here dispute; sure I am, that if it were an implicit prayer, and the angel mentioned, a creature; yet the intention was no other then to terminate that prayer in God, who blesseth us by his Angel.  
Yet further, we come short of our duty to these blessed Spirits, if we entertain not in our hearts an high and venerable conceit of their wonderful majesty, glory, and greatness: and an awful acknowledgement and reverential awe of their presence▪ an holy joy, and confident assurance of their care and protection; and lastly, a fear to do aught that might cause them to turn away their faces, in dislike, from us: All these dispositions are copulative: for certainly, if we have conceived so high an opinion of their excellency, and goodness as we ought; we cannot but be bold upon their mutual interest, and be afraid to displease them: Nothing in the world but our sins can distaste them: They look upon our natural infirmities, deformities, loathsomnesses, without any offence, or nauseation: but our spiritual indispositions are odious to them▪ as those which are opposite to their pure natures. 
Jo. Bromiar. Sum. pradic. v. superbia.  The story is famous of the angel and the hermit, walking together; in the way there lay an il-sented and poisonous carrion, the hermit stopped his nose, and turned away his head, hasting out of that offensive air, the angel held on his pace, without any show of dislik: straightway they met with a proud man, gaily dressed, strongly perfumed, looking high, walking stately, the angel turned away his head, and stopped his nostrils, whiles the hermit passed on not without reverence to so great a person: and gave this reason; that the stench of pride was more loathsome to God and his Angels, then that of the carcase, could be to him.  
I blush to think, O ye glorious spirits, how often I have done that whereof ye have been ashamed for me; I abhor myself to recount your just dislikes; and do willingly profess, how unworthy I shall be of such friends, if I be not hereafter jealous of your just offence. Neither can I without much regret, think of those many and horrible nuisances, which you find every moment from sinful mankind: woe is me, what odious scents arise to you perpetually from those bloody murders, beastly uncleannesses, cruel oppressions, noisome disgorgings of surfeits, and drunkennesses, abominable Idolatries, and all manner of detestable wickednesses, presumptuously committed everywhere; enough to make you abhor the presence and protection of debauched and deplored mortality.  
But for us that are better principled, and know what it is to be overlooked by holy and glorious spirits, we desire and care to be more tender of your offence then of a world of visible spectators: And if the Apostle found it requisite to give such charge, for but the observation of an outward decency; not much beyond the lists of indifferency, because of the Angels; 
1 Cor 11.  what should our care be in relation to those blessed spirits, of our deportment in matter of morality, and religion? Surely, O ye invisible Guardians, it is not my sense that shall make the difference, it shall be my desire to be no less careful of displeasing you, then if I saw you present by me, clothed in flesh: Neither shall I rest less assured of your gracious presence and tuition, and the expectation of all spiritual offices from you, which may tend towards my blessedness, than I am now sensible of the ●nimation of my own soul.    

THE INVISIBLE WORLD. The Second BOOK.  

SECT. I. Of the Souls of Men. Of their separation and Immortality.  
NExt to these angelical Essences, the souls of men, whether in the body, or severed ●rom it, are those spirits which people the invisible world ●ex● to them, I say▪ not the s●me with them, not bett●r Those of the ancient which have thought that the ruin of Angels is to be supplied by ●lessed souls, spoke doubtless without the book; for he that is the truth itself hath said, they be ({non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}) like, not the same: And justly are those ●xploded, whether Pythago●eans, or Stoics, or Gnost●cks, or Manichees, or Alma●icus▪ or (if Lactantius himself were in that error, as Ludovicus Vives construes him) who falsely dreamed that the souls of ●en were of the substance of that God, which inspired them; These errors are more ●it for Ellebore, then for theological conviction: spiritual substances doubtless they ●re, and such as have no less distant original from the body, than heaven is from earth: Galen was not a better Physi●●an then an ill Divine, whiles ●e determines the soul to be the complexion and temperament of the prime qualities; no other than that harmony which the elder Naturalists dreamed of, an opinion no less brutish; then such a soul: For how can temperamet be the cause of any progressive motion; much less of a rational discourse? Here is no materiality, no physical composition in this inmate of ours; nothing but a substantial act, an active spirit, a spiritual form of the king of all visible creatures: But as for the Essence, original derivation, powers, faculties, operations of this human soul as it is lodged in this clay, I leave them to the disquisition of the great Secretaries of Nature; my way lies higher, leading me from the common consideration of this spirit, as it is clogged with flesh, unto the meditation of it, as it is devested of this earthly case, and clothed with an eternity whether of joy or torment: We will begin with happiness, (our fruition whereof (I hope) shall never end,) if first we shall have spent some thoughts upon the general condition of this separation.  
That the soul after separation from the body, hath an independent life of its own; is so clear a truth, that the very heathen Philosophers, by the dim light of nature have determined it for irrefragable: In so much as Aristotle himself (who is wont to hear ill for his opinion of the soul's mortality) is confidently reported to have written a book of the Soul Separate, which Thomas Aquinas in his (so late) age professes to have seen: Sure I am, that his Master Plato, and that heathen Martyr, Socrates (related by him) are full of divine discourses of this kind. In so much as this latter, when Crito was asking him how he would be buried: I perceive (said he) I have lost much labour, for I have not yet persuaded my Crito, that I shall fly clear away, and leave nothing behind me; meaning that the soul is the man, and would be ever itself, when his body should have no being: And in Xenophon (as Cicero citys him) Cyprus is brought in saying thus, Nolite arbitrari, 
●icero de Senectu●e.  &c. Think not my dear sons▪ that when I shall depart from you, I shall then cease to have any being; for even whiles I was with you ye saw not that soul which I had, but yet ye well saw by those things which I did, that there was a soul within this body: believe ye therefore, that though ye shall see no soul of mine, yet that it still shall have a being. Shortly, all but an hateful Epicurus, have astipulated to this truth: And if some have fa●cied a transmigration of souls into other bodies, others, a passage to the stars which formerly governed them; others, to I know not what Elysian fields; all have pitched upon a separate condition. And indeed not Divinity only, but true natural reason will necessarily evince it: For the intellective soul being a more spiritual substance, and therefore having in it no composition at all, and by consequence, nothing that may tend towards a not-being, can be no other (supposing the will and concurrence of the infinite Creator) then immortal: Besides, (as our best way of judging aught is wont to be by the effects) certainly all operations are from the forms of things, and all things do so work as they are: Now the body can do nothing at all without the help of the soul, but the soul hath actions of its own; as the acts of understanding, thinking, judging, remembering, ratiocination; whereof, 
Quicquid est illud quod sentit, qud sapit, quod vult, quòd viget, coeleste & divinum est, ob eamque rem aeternum sit necesse est. Tull Tusc. quaest. l. 1.  if (whiles it is within us) it receives the first occasions by our senses, and phantasms; yet it doth perfect and accomplish the said operations, by the inward powers of its own faculties; much more, and also more exactly can it do all these things, when it is merely itself; since the clog that the body brings with it, cannot but pregravate, and trouble the soul in all her performances: in the mean time, they do justly pass for mental actions; neither do so much as receive a denomination from the body: we walk, move, speak, see, feel, and do other human acts; the power that doth them is from the soul; the means or instrument, whereby they are done, is the body; no man will say the soul walks, or sees, but the body by it: but we can no more say that the soul understands or thinks by the aid of the body, than we can say the body thinks, or understands, by means of the soul: These therefore being distinct and proper actions, do necessarily evince an independing, and self-subsisting agent. O my soul, thou couldst not be thyself, unless thou knew'st thine original, heavenly; thine essence, separable; thy continuance eviternall. But what do we call in reason, and nature to this parley, where faith (by which Christianity teacheth us to be regulated) finds so full, and pregnant demonstrations: No less than half our Creed sounds this way, either by expression, or inference; where in whiles we profess to believe that Christ our Saviour rose from the dead and ascended we imply that his body was ●ot more dead, than his soul living and active; That was whereof he said, Father into thy hands I commend my spirit: now, we cannot imagine one life of the head, and another of the body: his state therefore is ours; every way are we conform to him: as our bodies then shall be once like to his, glorious; so our souls cannot be but, as his, severed by death, crowned with immortality: and if he shall come to judge both the quick and the dead; those dead whom he shall judge, must be living; for (as our Saviour said in the like case) God is not the Judge of the dead, as dead, but the Judge of the living that were dead, and therefore living in death, and after death: And whereof doth the Church Catholic consist, but of some members, warfaring on earth, others triumphant in heaven? and what doth that triumph suppose, but both a being, and a being glorious? What communion were there of Saints, if the departed souls were not▪ and the soul, when it begins to be perfect, should cease to be? to what purpose were the resurrection of the body, but to meet with his old partner, the soul? and that meeting only implies both a separation, and existence.  
Lastly, what life can there be properly but of the soul? and how can that life be everlasting, which is not continued? or that continued, that is not? If then he may be a man; certainly, a Christian he cannot be, who is more assured that he hath a soul in his body, then that his soul shall once have a being without his body: Death may tyrannize over our earthly parts, the worst he can do to the spiritual, is to free it from a friendly bondage. Cheer up thyself therefore, O my soul, against all the fears of thy dissolution; thy departure is not more certain than thy advantage; thy being shall not be less sure but more free, and absolute: Is it such a trouble to thee to be rid of a clog? or art thou so loath to take leave of a miserable companion for a while, on condition that he shall ere long meet thee happy?   

SECT. II. Of the instant vision of God upon the egression of the soul: and the present condition till then.  
BUt if, in the mean while, we shall let fall our eyes upon the present condition of the soul, it will appear how apt we are to misknow ourselves, and that which gives us the being of men; The most men, how ever they conceive they have a soul within them, by which they receive their animation, yet they entertain but dull and gloomy thoughts concerning it; as if it were no less void of light and activity, than it is of materiality, and shape: not apprehending the spiritual agility, and clearly-lightsome nature of that whereby they are enlived: wherein it will not a little avail us to have our judgements thoroughly rectified; and to know that as God is light, so the soul of man which comes immediately from him, and bears his image, is justly, even here, dignified with that glorious title; I spe●k not only of the regenerate soul illuminated by divine inspirations, and supernatural knowledge; but also even of that rational soul, which every man bears in his bosom. The spirit of man (saith wise Solomon) is the candle of the Lord, (Prov. 20.27.) searching all the inward parts of the belly. And the dear Apostle: In him was life, and the life was the light of men, 
Lumen aliquod substantiale anim●s habere haud improbe videmur advertere, quando in Evangelio legitu●, quod illuminat omnem hominem venientem in mundum: Deinde quod in cogitatione p●siti nescio quid tenue, volubile, clarum in nob●s inesse sen●imus, quod respicit sine sole, quod videt sine extraneo tumine: Nain si ipsum inse lucidum non esser, ●erum tantam c●●spicientiam non haberet: Tenebrosis ista non sicut data; omnia caeca torpescunt. Cassiodor. de Anima. Cap. 10.  Joh. 1.4. and more fully, soon after: That light was the true light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. v. 9  
No man can be so fondly charitable, as to think every man that comes into the world, enlightened by the spirit of regeneration: 
Calvin in loc.  It is then that intellectual light of common nature, which the great illuminator of the world beams forth into every soul, in such proportion as he finds agreeable to the capacity of every subject: Know thyself therefore. O man, and know thy maker: God hath not put into thee a dark soul: or shut up thy inward powers in a dungeon of comfortless obscurity; but he hath set up a bright shining Lamp in thy breast: whereby thou Mayest sufficiently discern natural and moral truths, the principles and conclusions whether of nature or art, herein advancing thee above all other visible Creatures, whom he hath confined (at the best) to a mere opacity of outward and common sense; But if our natural light shall, through the blessing of God, be so happily improved, as freely to give place to the spiritual, reason to faith, so that the soul can now attain to see him that is invisible, and in his light to see light, now, 
Psal. 36.6.  even whiles it is over-shaded with the interposition of this earth, it is already entered within the verge of glory: But, so soon as this va●● o● wretched mortality is done away; now it enjoys a clear heaven for ever, and sees as it is seen.  
Amongst many heavenly thoughts, wherewith my everdear and most honoured, and now blessed friend, the late Edward Earl of Norwich, had wont to animate himself against the encounter with our last enemy Death; this was one not of the meanest, that in the very instant of his souls departing out of his body, it should immediately enjoy the v●sion of God: And certainly so it is, The spirits of just men, need not stand upon d●stances of place, or space of time, for this beatifical sight; but so soon as ever they are out of their clay lodging, they are in their spiritu●ll heaven even whiles they are happily conveying to the local; for since nothing hindered them from that happy sight, but the interposition of this earth, which we carry about us, 
2 Cor. 5.1.  the spirit being once free from that impediment, sees as it is seen, being instantly passed into a condition like unto the Angels; well therefore are these coupled together by the blessed Apostle, who in his divine rapture had seen them both; Ye are come (saith he) unto Mount Zion, and unto the City of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; 
Heb. 12.22.  and to an innumerable company of Angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. As than the Angels of God, wheresoever they are (though employed about the affairs of this lower world) yet do still see and enjoy the vision of God; so do the souls of the righteous, when they are once eased of this earthly load: doubtless, as they passed through degrees of Grace, whiles they took up with these homely lodgings of clay; so they may pass through degrees of bliss, when they are once severed. 
B. Andrews in his answer to Bellarmine.  And if (as some great Divines have supposed) the Angels themselves shall receive an augmentation of happiness at the day of the last judgement, when they shall be freed from all their charge and employments, (since the perfection of blessedness consists in rest, which is the end of all motion) how much more shall the Saints of God then receive an enlargement of their felicity; but in the mean time, they are entered into the lists of their essential beatitude, over the threshold of their heaven. How full and comfortable is that profession of the great Apostle, who when he had sweetly diverted the thoughts of himself and his Corinthians from their light afflictions to an eternal weight of excelling glory, from things temporal, which are seen, to those everlasting, which are not seen: adds; For we know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved, 
2 Cor. 5.1.  we have a building not made with hands eternal in the heavens; more then implying, that our eye is no sooner off from the temporal things, than it is taken up with eternal objects; and that the instant of the dis●olution of these clay cottages, is the livery and seisin of a glorious and everlasting mansion ●n heaven. Canst thou believe this O my soul, and yet recoil ●t the thought of thy departure? wert thou appointed after a dolorous dissolution to spend some hundreds of years at the fore-gates of glory (though in a painless expectation of a late happiness) even this hope were a pain alone; but if sense of pain were also added to the delay, this were more then enough to make the condition justly dreadful: But now that one minute shuts our eyes, and opens them to a clear sight of God, determines our misery, and begins our blessedness; Oh the cowardice of our unbelief, if we shrink at so momentany a purchase of eternity! How many have we known that for a false reputation of honour have rushed into the jaws of Death, when we are sure they could not come back to enjoy it; and do I tremble at a minute's pain, that shall feoff me in that glory, which I cannot but for ever enjoy? How am I ashamed to hear an heathen Socrates, encouraging himself against the fears of Death from his resolution of meeting with some fmous persons in that other world, and to feel myself shrugging at a short brunt of pain, that shall put me into the bliss-making presence of the All-glorious God, into the sight of the glorified humanity of my dear Redeemer, into the Society of all the Angels and Saints of heaven?   

SECT. III. Of the Souls perpetual vigilancy, and fruition of God.  
IT is no other than a frantic dream of those erroneous spirits that have fancied the sleep of the soul, and that so long and deep a sleep, as from the evening of the dissolution, till the morning of the resurrection; So as all that while, the soul hath no vision of God, no touch of joy or pain. An error wickedly raked up out of the ashes of those Arabic heretics, whom Origen is said to have reclaimed: and since that time, taken up (if they be not slandered) by the Armenians, and Fratricelli; and once countenanced, and abetted by Pope John the 22. (as Pope Adrian witnesseth,) yea so enforced by him, upon the University of Paris, as that all access to degrees was barred to any whosoever refused to subscribe, and swear to that damnable position: The Minorites began to find relish in that poison, which no doubt had proceeded to further mischief, had not the interposition of Philip the-then-French king happily quelled that uncomfortable and pernicious doctrine, so as we might have hoped it should never have dared more to look into the light. But, woe is me, these prodigious times amongst a world of other uncouth heresies, have not stuck to fetch even this also (wel-worsed) back from that region of darkness, whither it was sent: Indeed who can but wonder that any Christian can possibly give entertainment to so absurd a thought; whiles he hears his Saviour say, 
Job. 17.24.  Father I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me, where I am; and that (not in a safe sleep) they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: Behold it? yea, but when? at last perhaps when the body shall be resumed? Nay, (to choke this cavil) the bliss is present, even already possessed; 
V. 22.  The glory which thou gavest me I have given to them: It was accordingly his gracious word to the penitent thief, This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise: How clear is that of the chosen vessel, opposing our present condition to the succeeding: 
1 Cor. 13.12.  For now we see through a glass darkly; but then (that is, upon our dissolution) face to face, the face of the soul to the face of God: The infinite amiableness whereof was that which inflamed the longing desire of the blessed Apostle to depart and to be with Christ; as knowing these two inseparable, the instant of his departure, and his presence with Christ: else the departure were no less worthy of fear, as the utmost of evils, then now it is of wishing for, as our entrance into blessedness: Away then with that impious frenzy of the souls, whether mortality, or sleep in death: No, my soul, thou dost then begin to live, thou dost not awake till then: now whiles thou art in the bed of this living clay, thine eyes are shut, thy spiritual senses are tied up, thou art apt to s●ort in a sinful security; thou dreamest of earthly vanities; then, only then are thine eyes opened, thy spiritual faculties freed; all thy powers quickened, and thou art perpetually presented with objects of eternal glory. And if at any time during this pilgrimage, thine eyelids have been some little raised by divine Meditations, yet how narrowly, how dimly art thou wont to see? now thine eyes shall be so broadly and fully opened, that thou shalt see whole heaven at once; yea, which is more, the face of that God, whose presence makes it heaven: Oh glorious sight! O most blessed condition! Wise Solomon could truly observe that the eye is not satisfied with seeing; neither indeed can it be here below; nothing is so great a glutton as the eye; for when we have seen all that we can, we shall still wish to see more; and that more is nothing if it be less their all; but this infinite object (which is more than all) shall so fill and satisfy our eyes, that we cannot desire the sight of any other; nor ever be glutted with the sight of this; Old Simeon when once he had lived to see the Lord of life clothed in flesh, could say, ●ord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation: if he were so full of the sight of his Saviour in the weakness of human flesh, and in the form of a servant; how is he more then fated with the perfection of joy, and heavenly detestation, to see that Saviour clothed with majesty; to see his all glorious Godhead; and so to see, as to enjoy them; and so enjoy them, as that he shall never intermit their sight and fruition to all eternity.   

SECT. IV. Of the knowledge of the glorified.  
AS concerning all other matters, what the knowledge is of our souls, separated, and glorified, we shall then know when ours come to be such: in the mean time, we can much less know their thoughts, than they can know ours: sure we are, they do not know in such manner as they did, when they were in our bosoms; by the help of senses and phantasms, by the discursive inferences of ratiocination; but as they are elevated to a condition suitable to the blessed Angels; so they know like them: though not by the means of a natural knowledge, as they, yet by that supernatural light of intimation, which they receive by their glorified estate: Whether by virtue of this divine illumination they know the particular occurrences which we meet with here below, he were bold that would determine. Only this we may confidently affirm, that they do clearly know all those things which do any way appertain to their estate of blessedness. Amongst which, whether the knowledge of each other in that region of happiness may justly be ranked, is not unworthy of our disquisition. Doubtless, as in God there is all perfection eminently, and transcendently, so in the sight and fruition of God, there cannot be but full and absolute felicity; yet this is so far from excluding the knowledge of those things which derive their goodness and excellency from him, as that it compriseth, and supposeth it: Like as it is also in our affections; we love God only as the chief good; yet so as that we love other things in order to God; Charity is no more subject to loss, than knowledge, both these shall accompany our souls to and in that other world. As then, we shall perfectly love God, and his Saints in him; so shall we know both: and though it be a sufficient motive of our love in heaven, th●t we know them▪ to be Saints; yet it seems to be no small addition to our happiness, to know that those Saints were once ours: And if it be a just joy to a parent here on earth to see his child gracious, how much more acession shall it be to his joy above, to see the fruits of his loins glorious, when both his love is more pure, and their improvement absolute? Can we make any doubt that the blessed Angels know each other? how senseless were it to grant that no knowledge is hid from them, but of themselves? Or can we imagine that those angelical spirits do not take special notice of those souls which they have guarded here, and conducted to their glory? If they do so, and if the knowledge of our beatified souls shall be like to theirs, why should we abridge ourselves more than them, of the comfort of our interknowing? Surely▪ our dissolution shall abate nothing of our natural faculties; our glory shall advance them; so as what we once knew we shall know better: and if our souls can then perfectly know themselves, why should they be denied the knowledge of others?  
Doubt not then, O my soul, but thou shalt once see (besides the face of thy God, whose glory fills heaven and earth) the blessed spirits of the ancient Patriarchs, and Prophets, the holy Apostles and Evangelists, the glorious Martyrs and Confessors; those eminent Saints, whose holiness thou wert wont to magnify; and amongst them, those in whom nature and grace have especially interessed thee, thou shalt see them, and enjoy their joy and they thine: How oft have I measured a long and foul journey to see some good friend, and digested the tediousness of the way with the expectation of a kind entertainment, and the thought of that complacency which I should take in so dear? presence? and yet perhaps, when I have arrived, I have found the house disordered, one sick, another disquieted, myself indisposed; with what cheerful resolution should I undertake this my last voyage, where I shall meet with my best friends, and find them perfectly happy, and myself with them?   

SECT. V. Of the glory of heaven enjoyed by blessed Souls.  
HOw often have I begged of my God, that it would please him to show me some little glimpse of the glory of his Saints? It is not for me to wish the sight (as yet) of the face of that divine Majesty; This was two much for a Moses to sue for; my ambition only is, that I might, if but as it were through some cranny, or keyhole of the gate of heaven, see the happy condition of his glorious servants. I know what hinders me, my miserable unworthiness, my spiritual blindness. O God, if thou please to wash off my clay with the waters of thy Siloam, I shall have eyes; and if thou anoint them with thy precious eyesalve, those eyes shall be clear, and enabled to behold those glories which shall ravish my soul. And now, Lord, what pure and resplendent light is this, wherein thy blessed ones dwell? How justly did thine Ecstatical Apostle call it the inheritance of the Saints in light? light unexpressible, 
C●los. 1.12.  light unconceivable, light inaccessible? Lo, thou that hast prepared such a light to this inferior world for the use and comfort of us mortal creatures, as the glorious Sun, which can both enlighten and dazzle the eyes of all beholders▪ hast proportionally ordained a light to that higher world, so much more excellent than the Sun, as heaven is above earth, immortality above corruption. And if wise Solomon could say truly, the light is sweet, 
Eccles. 11.7.  and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to see the Sun; how infinitely delectable is it in thy light to see such light as may make the Sun in comparison thereof, darkness? In thy presence is the fullness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. What can be wished more, where there is fullness of joy? and behold thy presence, O Lord, yields it. Could I neither see Saint nor angel in that whole empyreal heaven, none but thine infinite self, thyself alone were happiness for me more then enough; But as thou, in whom here below we live, and move, and have our being, detractest nothing from thine all-sufficiency, but addest rather to the praise of thy bounty, in that thou furnishest us with variety of means of our life and subsistence; so here it is the praise of thy wonderful mercies which thou allowest us (besides thine immediate presence) the Society of thy blessed Angels, and Saints, wherein we may also enjoy thee. And if the view of any of those single glories be enough to fill my soul with wonder, and contentment: how must it needs run over at the sight of those worlds of beauty and excellency, which are here met and united? Lo here the blessed H●erarchy of innumerable Angels, there the glorious company of the Apostles here the goodly fellowship of the Patriarchs and Prophets there the noble Army of martyrs▪ here the troops of laborious Pastors and Teachers, there the numberless multitudes of holy and conscionable Professors. Lord, what exquisite order is here, what perfection of glory! And if even in thine eyes thy poor despised Church upon earth, be so beautiful and amiable, fair as the Moon clear as the Sun, 
Cant 6.10.  (which yet in the eyes of flesh seems but homely and hard-favoured) how infinite graces and perfections shall our spiritual eyes see in thy glorified spouse above? what pure sanctity? what sincere charity? what clear knowledge? what absolute joy? what entire union? what wonderful majesty? what complete felicity? All shine alike in their essential glory but not without difference of degrees; All are adorned with crowns, some also with coronets, some glister with a sky-like, others with a star-like clearness; the least hath so much as to make him so happy that he would not wish to have more; the greatest hath so much, that he cannot receive more; O divine distribution of bounty, where is no possibility of either want, or envy! Oh transcendent royalty of the Saints! one heaven is more than a thousand kingdoms; and every Saint hath right to all: so as every Subject is here a sovereign, and every sovereign is absolute under the free homage of an infinite creator. Lo here, crowns without cares, sceptres without burden, rule without trouble, reigning without change: Oh the transitory vanity of all earthly greatness▪ Gold is the most during metal, yet even that yields to age: Solomon's rich Diadem of the pure gold of Ophir, is long since dust: these crowns of glory are immarcescible, incorruptible; beyond all the compass of time, without all possibility of alteration. Oh the perishing and unsatisfying contentments of earth! how many-poor great ones below have that which they call honour and riches, and enjoy them not, and if they have enjoyed them, complain of satiety, and worthlesness! Lo here, a free scope of perfect joy, of constant blessedness, without mixture, without intermission; each one feels his own joy, feels each others; all rejoice in God with a joy unspeakable, and full of glory; and most sweetly bathe themselves in a pure and complete blissfulness. This very sight of blessed souls is happiness, but oh, for the fruition! Go now, my soul, and after this prospect, dote upon those silly profits and pleasures which have formerly bewitched thee; and (if thou canst) forbear to long after the possession of this blessed immortality; and repine at the message of this so advantageous a translation; and pity and lament the remove of those dear pieces of thyself, which have gone before thee to this unspeakable felicity.   

SECT. VI. Wherein the glory of the Saints above consisteth, and how they are employed.  
SUch is the place, such is the condition of the blessed; What is their implement? How do they spend, not their time, but their eternity? How? but in the exercise of the perpetual acts of their blessedness, vision, adhesion, fruition? who knows not that there is a contract passed betwixt God and the regenerate soul here below; out of the engagement of his mercy and love, he endows her with the precious graces of Faith, of Hope, of Charity. Faith, whereby she knowingly apprehends her interest in him: Hope, whereby she cheerfully expects the full accomplishment of his gracious promises: Charity, whereby she is feelingly and comfortably possessed of him, and clings close unto him. In the instant of our dissolution, we enter into the consummation of this blessed marriage: wherein it pleaseth our bountiful God, to endow his glorified spouse with these three privileges and improvements of her beatitude, answerable to these three divine graces: Vision answers to Faith, for what our faith sees, and apprehends here on earth? and afar off as Travellers; our estate of glorification exhibits to us clearly, and at hand, as comprehensors: the object is the same, the degrees of manifestation differ. Adhesion answers to our Hope; for what our hope comfortably expected, and longed for, we do now lay hold on as present and are brought home to it indissolubly: Fruition, lastly, answers to charity; for what is fruition, but a taking pleasure in the thing possessed, as truly delectable, and as our own; and what is this but the perfection of love? Shortly, what is the end of our faith but sight? what the end of our hope but possession? what the end of our love but enjoying? Lo then the inseparable and perpetual sight, possession, enjoyment, of the infinitely amiable, and glorious Deity, is not more the employment than the felicity of Saints: and what can the soul conceive matchable to this happiness? The man after God's own heart had one boon to ask of his M●ker; it must be sure some great suit wherein a favourite will set up his rest: 
Psal. 27.4.  One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require, even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life; to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit his holy Temple. Was it so contenting an happiness to thee (O David) to behold for a moment of time, the fair beauty of the Lord in his earthen Temple, where he meant not to reveal the height of his glory; how blessed art thou now, when thy soul lives for ever in the continual prospect of the infinite beauty and majesty of God, in the most glorious and eternal sanctuary of heaven? It was but in a cloud and smoke, wherein God showed himself in his material house; above, thou seest him clothed in an heavenly, and incomprehensible light; and if a little glimpse of celestial glory in a momentary transfiguration so transported the prime Apostle, that he wished to dwell still in Tabor: how shall we be ravished with the full view of that all-glorious Deity, whose very sight gives blessedness? What a life doth the presence of the Sun put into all Creatures here below? yet the body of it is afar off, the power of it created and finite: Oh then how perfect and happy a life must we needs receive from the Maker of it, when the beams of his heavenly glory shall shine in our face? Here below our weak senses are marred with too excellent objects; our pure spirits above cannot complain of excess, but by how much more of that divine light they take in, are so much the more blessed. There is no other thing wherein our sight can make us happy; we may see all other objects, and yet be miserable; here, our eyes convey into us influences of bliss; yet not our eyes alone: but as the soul hath other spiritual senses also, they are wholly possessed of God: our ●dhesion is as it were an heavenly touch, our fruition as an heavenly taste of the everblessed Deity; so the glorified soul in seeing God, feelingly apprehends him as its own; in apprehending sweetly enjoys him, to all eternity, finding in him more absolute contentment than it can be capable of, and finding itself capable of so much as make it everlastingly happy. Away with those brutish Paradises of Jews, and Turks and some Judaizing Chiliasts, who have placed happiness in the full feed of their sensual appetite, inverting the words of the Epicurean in the gospel: He could say, Let us eat and drink, for to morrow we shall die: they, Let us die, for we shall eat and drink; men, whose belly is their God; their kitchen their heaven: The soul that hath had the least smack, how sweet the Lord is in the weak apprehension of Grace here below, easily contemns these dunghill-felicities, & cannot but long after those true and satisfying delights above, in comparison whereof all the pleasures of the paunch and palate, are but either savorless or noisome.  
Feast thou thyself, onwards O my soul, with the joyful hope of this blessed vision, adhesion, fruition: Alas, here thy dim eyes see thy God through clouds and vapours, and not without manifold diversions, here thou cleavest imperfectly to that absolute goodness, but with many frail interceptions, every prevalent temptation loseth thy hold, and makes thy God and thee strangers; here thou enjoyest him sometimes in his favours, seldom in himself; and when thou dost so, how easily art thou robbed of him by the interpositions of a crafty, and bewitching world? There thou shalt so see him, as that thou shalt never look off; so adhere to him, as never to be severed; so enjoy him, that he shall ever be all in all to thee, even the soul of thy soul; thy happiness is then essential; thy joy as inseparable, as thy being.   

SECT. VII. In what terms the departed Saints stand to us; and what respects they bear to us.  
Such is the felicity wherein the separate souls of God's elect ones are feoffed, for ever: But, in the mean time, what terms do they stand in to their once-partners, these human bodies? to these the forlorn companions of their pilgrimage and warfare? Do they despise these houses of clay, wherein they once dwelled? or have they with Pharaoh's Courtier, forgotten their fellow-prisoner? Far be it from us to entertain so injurious thoughts of those spirits, whose charity is no less exalted than their knowledge: Some graces they do necessarily leave behind them; There is no room for faith, where there is present vision; no room for hope, where is full fruition; no room for patience, where is no possibility of suffering: but charity can never be out of date, charity both to God and man: As the head and body mystical are undivided, so is our love to both; we cannot love the head, and not the body; we cannot love some limbs of the body, and not others: The triumphant part of the Church then, which is above, doth not more truly love each other glorified, than they love the warfaring part beneath: neither can their love be idle, and fruitless; they cannot but wish well therefore to those they love: That the glorified Saints, then, above in a generality wish for the good estate, and happy consummation of their conflicting brethren here on earth, is a truth, not more void of scruple, then full of comfort. It was not so much revenge, 
Revel. 6.  which the souls under the altar pray for upon their murderers; as the accomplishment of that happy resurrection, in which that revenge shall be perfectly acted. The prayer in Zachary (and Saints are herein parallel) is, 
Zach. 1.12.  O Lord of hosts how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the Cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation? we do not use to joy, but in that which we wish for: 
Luk. 15.7.10.  There is joy in heaven, in the presence of the Angels for sinners repenting: In the presence of the Angels, therefore, on the part of the Saints, none but they dwell together. Oh ye blessed Saints, we praise God for you for your happy departure, for your crown of immortality: Ye do in common, sue to God for us, as your poor fellow-members, for our happy eluctation out of those miseries and tentations, wherewith we are continually conflicted here below, and for our society with you in your blessedness. Other terms of communion, we know none: As for any local presence, or particular correspondence, that ye may have with any of us, as we cannot come to know it; so, if we would, 
Job. a Jesu. Mar l. 5. de vit. There's. c. 3  we should have no reason to disclaim it. Johannes á Jesu-Maria, a modern Carmelite, writing the life of Theresia (Sainted lately by Gregory 15.) tells us, that as she was a vigilant overseer of her votaries in her life; so in, and after death she would not be drawn away from her care, and attendance; For (saith he) if any of her sisters did but talk in the set hours of their silence, she was wont by three knocks at the door of the Cell, to put them in mind of their enjoined taciturnity; and on a time appearing (as she did often) in a lightsome brightness, to a certain Carmelite, 
Nos coelestes ac vos exules amore ac puritati sae derate esse debemus, &c.  is said thus to bespeak him; Nos coe●estes, &c. We Citizens of heaven, and ye exiled pilgrims on earth, aught to be linked in a league of love, and purity, &c. Me thinks the reporter should fear this to be too much good fellowship for a Saint; I am sure neither Divine nor ancient Story had wont to afford such familiarity; And many have misdoubted the agency of worse, where have appeared less causes of suspicion▪ That this was (if any thing) an ill spirit under that face, I am justly confident; neither can any man doubt, that looking further into the relation, finds him to come with a lie in his mou●h: For thus he goes on, [We celestial ones behold the Deity, 
Nos coelites intuentes divinitatem; vos exules Euceharistiam venerantes; quam eo affectu quo nos divinitatem suspicimus, colere debetis. Ibid.  ye banished ones worship the Eucharist; which ye ought to worship with the same affection, wherewith we adore the Deity;] such perfume doth this holy devil leave behind him: The like might be instanced in a thousand apparitions of this kind, all worthy of the same entertainment.  
As for the state of the souls of Lazarus, of the widow's son, of Jairus his daughter, and of Tabitha, whether there were, by divine appointment, a suspension of their final condition for a time (their souls awaiting not far off from their bodies, for a further disposition) or, whether they were for the manifestation of the miraculous power of the Son of God, called off from their settled rest, some great Divines may dispute, none can determine: where God is silent, let us be willingly ignorant: wi●h more safety and assurance may we inquire into those respects, wherein the separated soul stands to that body, which it left behind it for a prey to the worms, a captive to death, and corruption: For certainly, though the parts be severed, the relations cannot be so: God made it intrinsically natural to that spiritual part to be the form of man, and therefore to animate the body. It was in the very infusion of it created, and in the creating, infused into this coessential receptacle; wherein it holds itself so interessed, as that it knows there can be no full consummation of its glory without the other half. It was not therefore more loath to leave this old partner in the dissolution, than it is now desirous to meet him again; as well knowing in how much happier condition they shall meet, than they formerly parted: Before this drossy piece was cumbersome, and hindered the free operations of this active spirit; now, that by a blessed glorification it is spiritualised, it is every way become pliable to his renewed partner, the Soul, and both of them to their infinitely glorious creator.   

SECT. VIII The reunion of the body to the soul both glorified.  
LO then so happy a reunion, as this material world is not capable of (till the last fire have refined it) of a blessed soul, met with a glorified body, for the peopling of the new heaven; who can but rejoice in spirit to foresee such a glorious communion of perfected Saints? to see their bodies with a clear brightness, without all earthly opacity; with agility, without all dulness; with subtlety, without grossness; with impassibility, without the reach of annoyance or corruption? There and then shalt thou, O my soul, looking through clarified eyes, see and rejoice to see that glorious body of thy dear God and saviour, which he assumed here below; and wherein he wrought out the great work of thy redemption; there shalt thou see the radiant bodies of all those eminent Saints, whose graces thou hadst wont to wonder at, and weakly wish to imitate; There shall I meet with the visible partners of the same unspeakable glory, my once dear parents, children, friends, and (if there can be room for any more joy in the soul, that is taken up with God) shall both communicate, and appropriate our mutual joys: There shall we indissolubly with all the chore of heaven pass our eviternity of bliss in lauding and praising the incomprehensibly-glorious Majesty of our creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier; in perpetual Hallelujahs to him that sits upon the Throne: And canst thou, O my soul, in the expectation of this happiness, be unwilling to take leave of this flesh for a minute of separation? How well art thou contented to give way to this body, to shut up the windows of thy senses, and to retire itself after the toil of the day, to a nightly rest, whence yet thou knowest it is not sure to rise; or if it do, yet it shall rise but such as it lay down; some little fresher, no whit better; and art thou so loath to bid a cheerful good-night to this piece of myself, which shall more surely rise then lie down, and not more surely rise, then rise glorious? Away with this weak and wretched infidelity: without which, the hope of my change would be my present happiness, and the issue of it mine eternull glory: Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.    

THE INVISIBLE WORLD. The Third BOOK.  

SECT. I. Of the evil Angels. Of their first sin and fall.  
HITHERTO our thoughts have walked through the lightsome and glorious regions of the spiritual world; now it is no less requisite to cast some glances towards those dreadful and darksome parts of it; where nothing dwells but horror and torment: Of the former, it concerns us to take notice for our comfort; of these latter for terror, caution, resistance.  
I read it reported by an ancient traveller, Haytonus, 
Fr. Haytonus in passagio terrae sanctae. Anno 1300. editus a Nicol▪ Salcone.  of the Order of the Premonstratensis, and cousin (as he saith) to the then-King of Armenia, that he saw a country in the kingdom of Georgia (which he would not have believed, except his eyes had seen it) caldel Hamsen, of three days' journey about, covered over with palpable darkness, wherein some desolate people dwell; for those which inhabit upon the borders of it, might hear the neighing of horses, and crowing of cocks, and howling of dogs, and other noises, but no man could go in to them, without loss of himself: Surely this may seem some slight representation of the condition of Apostate Angels, and reprobate souls: Their region is the kingdom of darkness, they have only light enough to see themselves eternally miserable; neither are capable of the least glimpse of comfort, or mitigation. But, as it falls out with those, which in a dark night bear their own light, that they are easily discerned by an enemy that waits for them, and good aim may be taken at them, even whiles that enemy lurks unseen of them: so it is with us in these spiritual ambushes of the infernal powers, their darkness and our light gives them no small advantage against us; The same power that clears and strengthens the eyes of our soul to see those over-excelling glories of the good Angels, can also enable us to pierce through that hellish obscurity, and to descry so much of the natures and condition of those evil spirits as may render us both wary, and thankful.  
In their first creation there were no Angels but of light, that any of them should bring evil with him from the moment of his first being, is the exploded heresy of a Manes, a man fit for his name; and if Prateolus may be believed, of the Trinit●●ians; yea, blasphemy rather, casting mire in the face of the most pure and holy Deity: For, from an absolute goodness, what can proceed but good? And if any then of those spirits could have been originally evil, whence could he pretend to fetch it? Either three must be a predominant principle of evil; or a derivation of it from the fountain of infinite goodness, either of which were very monsters of impiety: All were once glorious spirits; sin changed their hue, and made many of them ugly Devils: Now straight I am apt to think, Lord! how should sin come into the world? how into Angels? God made all things good; sin could be no work of his: How should the good that he made, produce the evil which he hates? Even this curiosity must receive an answer.  
The great God when he would make his noblest creature, found it fit to produce him in the nearest likeness to himself; and therefore to endue him with perfection of understanding, and freedom of will, either of which being wanting there could have been no excellency in that which was intended for the best: such therefore did he make his Angels: Their will being made free had power of their own inclinations; those free inclinations of some of them, swayed them awry from that highest end which they should have solely aimed at, to a faulty respect, unto oblique ends of their own.  
Hence was the beginning of sin; for as it falls out in causes efficient, that when the secondary agent swarves from the order and direction of the principal, straight ways a fault thereupon ensues (as when the leg by reason of crookedness, fails of the performance of that motion, which the appetitive power enjoined, an halting immediately follows) so it is in final causes also, (as Aquinas acutely) when the secondary end is not kept in, under the order of the principal and highest end, there grows a sin of the will, whose object is ever good: but if a supposed, & self respective good be suffered to take the wall of the best, & absolute good, the will instantly proves vicious. As therefore there can be no possible fault incident into the will of him who propounds to himself as his only good, the utmost end of all things, which is God himself; so, in whatsoever willer, whose own particular good is contained under the order of another higher good, there may (without God's special confirmation) happen a sin in the will: Thus it was with these revolting Angels, they did not order their own particular (supposed) good to the supreme and utmost end; but suffered their will to dwell in an end of their own; and by this means did put themselves into the place of God; not regulating their wills by another superior, but making their will, the rule of their own desires; which was in effect, to affect an equality with the highest Not that their ambition went so high as to aspire to an height of goodness, or greatness, equal to their infini●e creator; This (as the greater Leader of the School hath determined it) could not fall into any intelligent nature, since it were no other, then to affect his own not being; for as much as there can be no being at all, without a distinction of degrees, and subordinations of beings: This was (I suppose) the threshold of leaving their first estate: Now it was with angelical spirits as it is with heavy bodies, when they begin to fail they went down at once, speedily passing through many degrees of wickedness. Let learned Gerson see upon what grounds he conceives, that in the beginning their sin might be venial, afterwards arising to the height of maliciousness; whom Salmeron seconds by seven reasons, alleged to that purpose; labouring to prove that before their precipitation, they had large time, and place of repentance; the point is too high for any human determination: this we know too well by ourselves, that even the will of man, when it is once let loose to sin, finds no stay; how much more of those active spirits, which by reason of their simple and spiritual nature, convert themselves wholly to what they do incline?  
What were the particular grounds of their defection and ruin, what was their first sin, it is neither needful, nor possible to know; I see the wracks of this curiosity in some of the Ancient, who misguiding themselves by a false compass of misapplied Texts, have split upon those shelves which their miscarriage shall teach me to avoid; If they have made Lucifer▪ (that is, the morning Star) a devil, 
Isa. 14.12.  and mistake the King of Babylon for the Prince of darkness, as they have palpably done, I dare not follow them. Rather let me spend my thoughts in wondering at the dreadful justice, and the incomprehensible mercy of our great and holy God, who having cast these Apostate Angels into hell, and reserved them in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgement of the great day, hath yet graciously found out a way to redeem miserable mankind from that horrible pit of destruction: It is not for me to busy myself in finding out reasons of difference for the aggravation of the sin of Angel● and abatement of man's; as that sin began in them, they were their own tempters: that they sinned irreparably, since their fall was to them as death is to us: How ever it were, Cursed be the man who shall say that the sin of any creature exceeds the power of thy mercy, O God, which is no other than thyself, infinite; whiles therefore I lay one hand upon my mouth, I lift up the other in a silent wonder, with the blessed Apostle, and say, How unsearchable are thy judgements, and thy ways past finding out.   

SECT. IV. Of the number of Apostate Spirits.  
WHo can but tremble to think of the dreadful precipice of these d●●ned Angels, which from the highest pitch of heaven, were suddenly thrown down into the dungeon of the nethermost hell? who can but tremble to think of their number, power, malice, cunning and deadly machinations?  
Had this defection been single, yet it had been fearful: should but one star fall down from heaven, with what horror do we think of the wrack that would ensue to the whole world? how much more when the great Dragon draws down the third part of the stars with his tail? And lo, these Angels were as so many spiritual stars in the firmament of glory. It was here as in the rebellion of great Peers, the common sort are apt to take part in any insurrection: There are orders and degrees even in the region of confusion; we have learned of our Saviour to know, there is a devil and his Angels; And Jewish tradition hath told us of a Prince of Devils. It was in all likelihood some prime angel of heaven, that first started aside from his station, and led the ring of this highest and first revolt; millions sided with him, and had their part both in his sin and punishment: Now how formidable is the number of these evil and hostile spirits? Had we the eyes of that holy Hermit (for such the first were) we might see the air full of these malignant sp●rits, laying snares for miserable mankind: And if the possessors of one poor demoniac, could style themselves Legion, (a name that in the truest account, contains no less than ten Cohorts, & every Cohort fifty Companies, and every Company 25 soldiers, to the number of 1225) what an army of these hellish fiends do we suppose is that, wherewith whole mankind is beleaguered all the world over? Certainly no man living, (as Tertullian and Nissen have too truly observed) can, from the very hour of his nativity, to the last minute of his dissolution, be free from one of these spiritual assailants, if not many at once. The ejected spirit returns to his former assault with seven worse than himself. Even where there is equality of power, inequality of number must needs be a great advantage. An Hercules himself is no match for two Antagonists; yea, were their strength much less than ours, if we be but as a flock of Goats feeding upon the hills; when the evil spirits (as the Midianites & Amalekites were against Israel) are like grasshoppers in the valley, what hope, what possibility were there, (if we were left in our own hands) for saefty or prevalence? But now alas, their number is great, but their power is more: Even these Evil Angels are styled by him that knew them, no less than principalities and powers, and rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places. 
Naturalia in damnatis Angelis manent splendidissima.  They lost not their strength when they left their station. It is the rule of Dionysius (too true I fear) that in the reprobate Angels their natural abilities still hold; No other then desperate therefore were the condition of whole mankind, if we were turned loose into the lists to grapple with these mighty spirits. Courage, O my soul, and together with it, victory: Let thine eyes be but open (as Gehezies') & thou shalt see more with us then against us; One good angel is able to chase whole troops of these malignant: For though their natural powers in regard of the substance of them be still retained; yet in regard of the exercise and execution of them, they are abated, and restrained by the overruling order of divine Justice, and mercy; from which, far be that infinite incongruity, that evil should prevail above God; The same God therefore, who so disposeth the issue of these human contentions, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, cowardizeth and daunteth these mighty and insolent spirits, so as they cannot stand before one of these glorious Angels; nor prevail any further than his most wise providence hath contrived to permit for his own most holy purposes.  
How ever yet we be upon these grounds safe in the good hands of the Almighty, and of those his blessed Guardians, to whom he hath committed our charge: yet it well befits us, to take notice of those powerful executions of the evil Angels which it pleaseth the great Arbiter of the world to give way unto, that we may know what cause we have both of vigilance and gratitude.   

SECT. III. Of the power of Devils.  
NO dwarf will offer to wrestle with a Giant; it is an argument of no small power, as well as boldness of that proud spirit, that he durst strive with Michael the archangel: and though he were as then foiled in the conflict, yet he ceaseth not still to oppose his Hierarchy to the celestial, and not there prevailing▪ he pours out his tyranny, where he is suffered, on this inferior world; 
Job. 1.16.  One while fetching down fire from heaven (which the messenger called the fire of God) upon the flocks and shepherds of Job: another while, blustering in the air, with hurrying winds, and furious tempests, breaking down the strongest towers, and turning up the stoutest oaks, tearing asunder the hardest rocks, and rending of the tops of the firmest mountains: one while swelling up the raging Sea to sudden inundations; another while causing the earth to totter and tremble under our feet: would we descend to the particular demonstrations of the powerful operations of evil spirits, this discourse would have no end. If we do but cast our eyes upon Jannes and Jambres, the Egyptian Sorcerers, (in whom we have formerly instanced in another Treatise, to this purpose) we shall see enough to wonder at: How close did they for a time follow Moses at the heels, imitating those miraculous works, which God had appointed, and enabled him to do for Pharaoh's conviction? Had not the faith of that worthy servant of God been invincible, how blank must he needs have looked, to see his great works patterned by those presumptuous rivals? Doth Moses turn his rod into a serpent? every of their rods crawleth and hisseth as well as his? Doth he smite the waters into blood? their waters are instantly as bloody as his: Doth he fetch frogs out of Nilus into Pharaoh's bedchamber, and bosom, and into the ovens and kneading troughs of his people? they can store Egypt with loathsome cattle as well as he: All this while, Pharaoh knows no difference of a God, and hardly yields whether Jannes or Moses be the better man; although he might easily have decided it, out of the very acts done; he saw Moses his serpent devoured theirs; so as now there was neither serpent, nor rod; and whiles they would be turning their rod into aserpent, both rod and serpent were lost in that serpent, which returned into a rod: He saw that those Sorcerers, who had brought the frogs could not remove them; and soon after sees that those jugglers, who pretended to make serpents, blood, frogs, cannot (when God pleaseth to restrain them) make so much as a louse: But supposing the sufferance of the Almighty, who knows what limits to prescribe, to these infernal powers? They can beguile the senses, mock the fantasy, work strongly by philtres upon the affections, assume the shapes of man or beast, inflict grievous torment on the body, convey strange things insensibly into it, transport it from place to place in quick motions, cause no less sudden disparitions of it; heal diseases by charms, and spells; frame hideous apparitions, and, in short, by applying active powers to passive subjects they can produce wonderful effects: each of all which were easy to be instanced in whole volumes, if it were needful, out of history and experience. Who then, O God, who is able to stand before these sons of Anak? what are we in such hands? Oh match desperately unequal, of weakness with power, flesh with spirit, man with Devils! Away with this cowardly diffidence: cheer up thyself, O my soul, against these heartless fears; and know the advantage is on thy side. Could Samson have been firmly bound hand and foot by the Philistine cords, so as he could not have stirred those mighty limbs of his, what boy or girl of Gath or Ascalon would have feared to draw near, and spurn that awed champion: No other is the condition of our dreadful enemies, they are fast bound up with the adamantine chains of God's most merciful and inviolable decree, and forcibly restrained from their desired mischief: Who can be afraid of a muzzled and tied up mastiff? What woman or child cannot make faces at a fierce Lion, or a bloody Bajazet locked up fast in an iron grate? were it not for this strong, and straight curb of divine providence, what good man could breathe one minute upon earth? The Demo●iack in the Gospel could break his iron fetters i● pieces, through the help of his ●egion; those Devils that possessed him, could not break theirs; they are fain to sue for leave to enter into swine, neither had obtained it (in all likelihood) but for a just punishment to those Gadarene owners; How sure may we then be, that this just hand of omnipotence will not suffer these evil ones to tyrannize over his chosen vessels for their hurt? How safe are we, since their power is limited, our protection infinite?   

SECT. IV. Of the knowledge and malice of wicked Spirits.  
WHo can know how much he is bound to God for safeguard, if he do not apprehend the quality of those enemies, wherewith he is encompassed? 
Obscientiam nominati. Aug. l. 9 de Civ●.  whose knowledge and skill is no whit inferior to their power: They have not the name of daemons for nothing; their natural knowledge was not forfeited by their fall, the wisdom of the infinite giver of it knows how rather to turn it to the use of his own glory: However therefore, they are kept of● from those divine illuminations, which the good Angels receive from God, yet they must needs be granted to have such a measure of knowledge, as cannot but yield them a formidable advantage. For, as spirits, being not stripped of their original knowledge, together with their glory, they cannot but know the natures and constitutions of the creatures, and thereby their tempers, dispositions, inclinations, conditions, faculties; and therewith their wants, their weakness and obnoxiousness, and thereupon strongly conjecture at their very thoughts, and intentions, and the likelihood of their repulses or prevailings: out of the knowledge of the causes of things they can foresee such future events as have a dependence thereon. To which, if we shall add the improvement, which so many thousand years' experience can yield to active and intelligent spirits, together with the velocity of their motitions, and the concurrent intelligence which those powers of darkness hold with each other we shall see cause enough to disparage our own simplicity, to tremble at our own danger, and to bless God for our indemnity.  
But if unto all these, we shall take notice of their malice, no whit inferior to their power, and knowledge, we cannot but be transported with the wonder at our infinite obligations to the blessed Majesty of heaven, who preserves us from the rage of so spiteful, cunning, mighty enemies. Satan carries hostility in his very name, and answerably in his wicked nature: hostility to the God that made him, as the avenger of his sin; hostility for his sake to the Creature, which that God made good: his enmity did, as himself, descend from the highest, for it began at the Almighty, and remains as implacable, as impotent.  
It is a bold and uncouth story, and scarce safe to relate, which I find in the book of Conformity reported, as cited by a demoniac woman, from the mouth of a certain friar, named Jacobus de Pozali, in his Sermon; That S. Macarius once went about to make peace betwixt God and Satan; That it pleased God to say, If the devil will acknowledge his fault I will pardon him: To which the evil spirit returned answer, I will never acknowledge any fault of mine; yea, that crucified Saviour should rather cry me mercy for keeping me thus long in hell: To whom Macarius, (as he well might) Avoid Satan. I know not whether more to blame their Saint (if they report him right) for too much charity, or for too little grace and wit, in so presumptuous an endeavour: The very treaty was in him blasphemous; the answer no other than could be expected from a spirit obdured in malice, and desperate in that obduredness; The truth is, he hates us because he hated God first; and like the enraged Panther, tears the picture, because he cannot reach the person whom it represents.  
He that made him an angel tells us what he is, since he made himself a devil, even a manslayer from the beginning: His very trade is murder and Destruction, and his executions unweariable: he goes abous continually like a roaring Lion, seeking whom he may devour. It is no other than a marvelous mystery of Divine state, too deep for the shallowness of human souls to reach into, that God could with one word of his powerful command destroy and dissolve all the powers of hell; yet he knows it best not to do it: only we know he hath a justice to glorify, as well as a mercy; and that he knows how to fetch more honour to himself, by drawing good out of evil, then by the amotion, and prevention of evil. Glory be to that infinite power, justice, mercy, providence, that contrives all things both in heaven and earth, and hell, to the highest advantage of his own blessed Name, and to the greatest benefit of his elect.   

SECT. V. The variety of the spiritual assaults of Evil Spirits.  
OUT of this hellish mixture of power, skill, malice, do proceed all the deadly machinations of these infernal spirits, which have enlarged their kingdom, and furnished the pit of destruction. It was a great word of the chosen Vessel, We are not ignorant of Satan's devices: 
2 Cor 2.11  O blessed Apostle, thy illuminated soul which saw the height of heaven, might also see the depth of hell: Our weak eyes are not able to pierce so low. That Satan is full o● crafty devices we know too well; but what those devices are, is beyond our reach: Alas, we know not the secret projects of silly men like ourselves: yea, who knows the crooked windings of his own heart? much less can we hope to attain unto the understanding of these infernal plots and stratagems: such knowledge is too wonderful for us, our clew hath not line enough to fathom these depths of Satan: But though we be not able possibly to descry those infinite and hidden particularities of diabolical art and cunning; yet our woeful experience and observation hath taught us some general heads of these mischievous practices: Divers whereof I am not unwilling to learn, and borrow of that great Master of Meditation, Gerson, 
Gerson de variis Diaboli tentationibus.  the learned chancellor of Paris, a man singularly acquainted with tentations. One while therefore that evil one lays before us the incommodities, dangers, wants, difficulties of our callings; to dishearten us, and draw us to impatience and listlesseness; and rather than fail, will make piety a colour of laziness; another while he spurs up our diligence in our worldly vocation, to withdraw us from holy duties: one while, he hides his head, and refrains from tempting, that we may think ourselves secure, and slacken our care of defence; another while, he seems to yield, that he may leave us proud of the victory: one while, he tills us on to our overhard tasks of austere mortification, that he may tire our piety, and so stupefy us with an heartless melancholy: another while, he takes us off from any higher exercises of virtue, as superfluous: one while, he turns and fixes our eyes upon other men's sins, that we may not take view of our own; another while, he amplifies the worth and actions of others, to breed in us either envy or dejection: one while, he humours our zeal in all other virtuous proceedings, for but the colour of one secret vice; another while, he lets us lose to all uncontrolled viciousness, so as we be content to make love to some one virtue: one while, under the pretence of discretion, he discourages us from good (if any way dangerous) enterprises; another while, he is apt to put us upon bold hazards, with the contempt of fear or wit, that we may be guilty of our own miscarriage: one while, he works suspicion in love, and suggests misconstructions of well-meant words or actions, to cause heartburning between dear friends; another while, under a pretence of favour, he kills the soul with flattery: one while he stirs up our charity to the public performance of some beneficial works, only to win us to vainglory; another while, he moves us for avoiding the suspicion or censure of si●gularity, to fashion ourselves to the vicious guises of our sociable neighbours: one while he persuades us to rest in the outward act done, as meritoriously acceptable; another while, under a colour of humility, he dissuades us from those good duties, whereby we might be exemplary to others: one while, he heartens us in evil gettings, under pretence of the opportunity of liberal almsgiving; another while, he closes our hands in a rigorous forbearance of needful mercy, under a fair colour of Justice: one while, he incites us under a pretence of zeal, to violate charity, in unjust censures and violent executions; another while, under pretence of mercy to bear with gross sins: one while, he stirs us up, under a colour o● charitable caution, to wound our neighbour with a secret detraction; another while, out of of carnal affections he would make us the panders of others vices: one while, he sets on the tongue to an inordinate motion, that many words may let fall some sin; another while he restrains it in a sullen silence, out of an affectation of a commendable modesty: one while, out of a pretended honest desire to know some secret and useful truth, he hooks a man into a busy curiosity, and unawares entangles the heart in unclean affections; another while, he broaks many a sin with only the bashfulness of inquiry: one while, he injects such pleasing thoughts of fleshly delights, as may at the first seem safe and inoffensive; which by a delayed entertai●ment prove dangerous, and inflaming; another while, he overlays the heart with such swarms of obscene suggestions, that when it should be taken up with holy devotion, it hath work enough to repel and answer those sinful importunit●es: one while, he moves us to an ungrounded confidence in God for a condescent, or deliverance; that upon our disappointment he may work u●to impatience; or, upon our prevailing to a pride, and overweening opinion of our mistaken faith; another while, he casts into us glances of distrust, where we have sure ground of belief: one while, he throws many needless scruples into the conscience, for a causeless perplexing of it; affrighting it even from lawful actions; another while he labours so to widen the conscience, that even gross sins may pass down unfelt: one while he will seem friendly in suggesting advise to listen unto good counsel (which yet he more strongly keeps us off from taking) for a further obduration; another while, he moves us to slight all the good advice of others, out of a persuasion of our own self-sufficiency; that we may be sure to fall into evil: one while he smooths us up in the good opinion of our own gracious disposition, that we may rest in our measure; another while he beats us down with a disparagement of our true graces, that we may be heartless and unthankful: one while, he feeds us with a sweet contentment in a colourable devotion, that we may not care to work our hearts to a solid piety; another while, he endeavours to freeze up our hearts with a dulness and sadness of spirit in our holy services, that they may prove irksome, and we negligent: one while he injects lawful but unseasonable motions of requisite employments, to cast off our minds from due intention in prayers, hearing, meditation; another while he is content we should over-weary ourselves with holy tasks, that they may grow tediously distasteful: one while, he woes a man to glut himself with some pleasurable sin, upon pretence that this satiety may breed a loathing of that, whereof he surfeits; another while he makes this spiritual drunkenness but an occasion of further thirst: one while, he suggests to a man the duty he owes to the maintenance of his honour, and reputation, though unto blood; another while, he bids him be tongue-proof, that he may render the party shamelessly desperate in evil doing: one while, he allows us to pray long, that we may love to hear ourselves speak, and may languish in our devotion; another while, he tells us there is no need of vocal prayers, since God hears our thoughts: one while, he urgeth us to a busy search, and strong conclusion of the unfailable assurance of our election to glory, upon slippery and unsure grounds; another while to a careless indifferency, and stupid neglect of our future estate, that we may perish through security: one while, slighting the measure of contrition as unsufficient; another while, working the heart to take up with the least velleity of penitent sorrow, without straining it to any further afflictive degrees of true penance: one while, suggesting such dangerous points of our self-examination, that the resolution is every way unsafe; so as, we must presume upon our strength, if we determine affirmatively; if negatively, decline towards despair; another while encouraging a man by the prosperous event of his sin, to react it; and by the hard successes of good actions, to forbear them: one while, under pretence of giving glory to God for his graces, stirring up the heart to a proud over valuing our own virtues, and abilities; another while stripping God of the honour of his gifts by a causeless pusillanimity: one while aggravating our unworthiness to be sons, servants, subjects, guests, almsemen of the holy and great God; another while, upon some poor works of piety, or charity, raising our conceits to a secret gloriation of our worthiness, both of acceptance and reward, and God's beholdingness to us. Shortly, (for it were easy to exceed in instances) one while casting undue fears into the tender hearts of weak regenerates, of God's just desertions, and of their own sinful deficiencies; another while, puffing them up with ungrounded presumptions of present safety, and future glory. These and a thousand more such arts of Deceit do the evil spirits practise upon the poor soul of wretched man to betray it to everlasting destruction: And if at any time, they shall pretend fair respects, it is a true observation of a strict votary, That the Devils of Consolation, are worse than the afflictive. O my soul, what vigilance can be sufficient for thee, whiles thou art so beset with variety of contrary temptations.   

SECT. VI. Of the apparitions and assumed shapes of evil spirits.  
BEsides these mental and ordinary onsets, we find when these malignant spirits have not stuck, for a further advantage, to clothe themselves with the appearances of visible shapes, not of meaner creatures only, but of men, both living and dead; yea, even of the good Angels themselves. It were easy to write volumes of their dreadful and illusive apparitions; others have done it before me, my pen is for other use: The times are not past the ken of our memory, since the frequent (and in some part, true) reports of those familiar Devils, Fayires, and Goblins, wherewith many places were commonly haunted; the rarity whereof in these latters' times, is sufficient to descry the difference betwixt the state of ignorant superstition, and the clear light of the gospel: I doubt not but there were many frauds intermixed both in the acting, and relating divers of these oecurrences; but he that shall detract from the truth of all, may as well deny there were men living in those ages before us: Neither can I make question of the authentic records of the 
Diabolus gloriosa forma, diademate g●mmeo & aureo redimitus, veste regia indutus, apparuit Martin. precanti, se Christum dicit, cui postsilentium aliquod sanctus: Ego Christum nisi in illo babitu, formaque qua passus est, nisi crucis stigmata proferentem, venisse non credam; hînc evanuît. Hoc narravit Sulpitio Martinus ipse, ut refert idem Sever Sulp. in vita Martini.  examinations, and confessions of Witches and Sorcerers, in several regions of the world, 
* Bodin Daemonomania, ubique.  agreeing in the truth of their horrible pacts with Satan, of their set meetings with evil spirits, their beastly homages, and conversations; I should hate to be guilty of so much incredulity, as to charge so many grave Judges, and credible historians with lies. Amongst such fastidious choice of whole dry-fats of voluminous relations, I cannot forbear to single out that one famous story of Magdalene de la Groix, in the year of our Lord Christ, 1545. 
* Sim. Goul. Hist. admirables. Casstod. Reney en ses Relation●, zuinger. Theatre de vie Human. Bodin. Daemonomania, l. 2.  who being borne at Cordova in Spain, whether for the indigence or devotion of her parents, was at five years' age, put into a Covent of Nuns: at that age an evil spirit presented himself to her in the form of a Blackmore, soul and hideous; she startled at the sight, not without much horror: but with fair speeches and promises of all those gay ●oyes, wherewith children are wont to be delighted, she was won to hold society with him; not without strong charges of silence and secrecy: In the mean time giving proof of a notable quick wit, and more than the ordinary ability incident into her age; so as she was highly esteemed, both of the young novices, and of the aged Nuns.  
No sooner was she come to the age of 12 or 13 years, than the devil solicits her to marry with him, and for her dowry, promises her that for the space of 30 years, she shall live in such fame and honour for the opinion of her sanctity, as that she shall be for that time, the wonder of all Spain. Whiles this wicked spirit held his unclean conversation with her in her chamber, he delegates another of his hellish complices, to supply the place and form of his Magdalene in the Church, in the Cloister, in all their meetings; not without marvelous appearance of gravity, and devotion; disclosing unto her also, the affairs of the world abroad, and furnishing her with such advertisements, as made her wondered at; and won her the reputation, not of an holy virgin only, but of a prophetess. Out of which height of estimation, although she was not for years capable of that dignity, she was by the general votes of the sisterhood chosen unanimously, to be the abbess of that Covent: wonderful were the feats which she then did. The Priest cries out in his celebration, that he missed one of the holy Hosts, which he had consecrated: and lo, tha● was by her wonted angel, invisibly conveyed to holy Magdalene; The wall that was betwixt her lodging and the choir, at the elevation of the host, clave asunder, that holy Magdalene might see that sacred act: And (which was yet more notorious) on solemn festivals, when the Nuns made their procession, Magdalene was in the sight of all the beholders, lift up from the earth, the height of three cubits, as if she should have been rapt up to heaven: and sometimes, while she bore in her arm● little image of the child Jesus, new born, and naked, weeping (like a true Magdalene) abundantly over the babe; her hair seemed by miracle, suddenly lengthened so low as to reach unto her ankles, for the covering of the naked child; which so soon as she had laid aside that dear burden, returned suddenly to the wonted length: These and many other the like miracles, made her so famous, that Popes, Emperor▪ the Grandees of Spain wrote to her, beseeching her in their letters to recommend their affairs to God in her powerful devotions; and in requiring her advise & advertisements in matters of high importance; as appeared afterwards, by the letters found in her Cabinet. And the great Ladies of Spain, and other parts would not wrap their newborn infants in any clouts or swathing-bands, but such as the sacred hands of Abbess Magdalene had first touched & blessed: All, the Nuns of Spain were proud of so great an honour of their order, and such miraculous proofs of their sanctity. At last it pleased God to lay open this notable fraud of the devil; for Magdalene after thirty years' acquaintance with this her paramour, having been Abbess now twelve years, began to conceive some remorse for her former practices; and growing to a detestation of her horrible society with that evil spirit, found means freely to discover to the Visitors of her Order, all the whole carriage of this abominable and prodigious wickedness. Although some credible, wise, and learned persons have reported, that she, perceiving the Nuns to have taken secret notice of her foul pranks, lest she should run into a deserved condemnation, did (under the favour of those laws which give pardon to self-accusing offenders) voluntarily confess her monstrous villainy and impiety. This confession blanked many of her favourers and admirers; and seemed so strange, that it was held fit not to believe it, without strict and legal examinations, and proceedings: Magdalene was close imprisoned in her Covent; and being called to question, confessed all this mystery of iniquity: Yet still her Moor continued his illusions; for, while she was fast locked up in her Cell, with a strong guard upon her doors; the Nuns were no sooner come into the choir, towards morning, to say their matins; then this deputy-apparition of Magdalene, took up her wonted stall, and was seen devoutly tossing her beads amongst her sisters; so as they thought the Visitors had surely freed her of the crimes objected, upon her vehement penitence: But hearing that Magdalene was still fast caged in her prison, they acquainted the Visitors with what they had seen the morning before: who upon full examination found, that she had never looked out of the doors of her gaol. The process was at last sent up to Rome; whence, since the confession was voluntary, she had her absolution. A Story of great note and use for many occasions, and too well known to the world, to admit of either denial, or doubt, and ratified, as by the known consent of the time, so by the faithful records of Zuingerus, Bodin, Reney, Goulartius. Lord God what cunning conveyances are here of the foul spirit? what subtle hypocrisy? what powerful illusions? enough to make sanctity itself suspected; enough to shame the pretence of miracles: He can for an advantage be an holy Nun, as well as an ugly Moor, he can be as devout at matins, Sacraments, Processions, as the best: What wonder? when he can at pleasure counterfeit an angel of light? In that glorious form did he appear to Simeon Stylites of old, to Girtrude of Westphalia, not without the entertainment of her joy and devotion; till Hermanus of Arnsburgh descried the fraud, and taught her to avoid it by a means no less advantageous to that ill spirit, than her former devotion: Yea, yet higher, to Pachomius, and to Valens the Monk, as Palladius reports, he durst appear and call for adoration, and had it, under the form of the Lord of life, blessed for ever.  
How vain is the observation of those Authors, who make this the difference betwixt the apparitions of good Angels, and evil; that the good make choice of the shapes, either of beautiful persons, or of those creatures which are clean, and hurtless; as of the shape of a Lamb to Clement, or an Hart to Eustace, or a Dove to Gummarus; whereas the evil put themselves into the forms of deformed men, or of harmful, and filthy beasts: as of a Goat, to the assembly of Witches; of Hogs, in the Churches of Agatha profaned by the Arrians; of Serpents, Dragons, Toads, and other loathsome and terrible Creatures, to St. Hilary and Anthony, as Athanasius and Hierom (in their supposititious relations) have reported. And that if at any time he take upon him the shape of a man, 
Est haec res mirabilis; nunquam visos esse daemons utroque pede hamano ullibi apparuisse. Forner. de Ang. Ser. 9  yet it is with some notable defect, and incongruity of limbs; as with a right foot cloven, or with a whole hoof; never entirely human: when we see that the very glory of Angels escapes not their counterfaisance. We know how easy it is for the Almighty to ordain some such mark to be set upon the false shapes of evil spirits, for their better discovery: but why should we rather suppose this to be done in the case of human bodies, then of heavenly Angels? why more in the resemblance of men, then of all other creatures since their deceit may be no less dangerous in either?  
But as for these visible Devils, they are in these days very rare; and where they have appeared, have wont to work more affright then spiritual prejudice. Evil spirits are commonly most pernicious to the soul, when they are least seen; as not caring so much for our terror, as our seduction. O God, they are crafty, but thou art wisdom itself; they are malicious, but thou art goodness: let thy goodness and wisdom ever protect and safeguard us; so shall we be, not more wretched, and unsafe in ourselves, than we shall be in thee, secure and happy.   

SECT. VII. The vehemence of Satan's last conflicts.  
THese spirits (because such) are neither capable of sleep nor weariness: as they are therefore ever busy, and restless in their assaults, so their last conflicts use to be most vehement; whether it be for that, now, the soul is passing out of their reach, as we find they did most tear and torture the demoniac, when they saw themselves upon the point of their ejection: or whether it be for that the painful agonies of death yield them more hopes of advantage; since the soul, whiles it is struggling with those last pangs, must needs have her powers distracted in her resistances. Cruelty where it would prevail, will be sure to lay most load upon the weakest: Hereupon it is, that holy men have been most careful to arm themselves stronglyest against those last onsets; and to bend all the forces of their souls upon their safe dissolution: The holy sister of S. Basil, and Melania, whom S. Jerome magnifies for their sanctity; beseech God with great fervency, that those envious spirits may not hinder them in their last passage: and devout Bernard to the same purpose, when he drew near his end, sues to his friend for his earnest prayers, that the heel of his life might be kept safe from the Serpent, so as he might not find where to fix his sting. Hence it is that in former times, good souls have been so provident to hearten themselves against the faint pulls of their death beds, with that [viaticum sacrum] the strongest spiritual cordial of the blessed Eucharist, which hath yielded them such vigour of heavenly consolation, that they have boldly defied all the powers of darkness, and in spite of all those assaults, have laid themselves down in peace.  
O God, I know Satan can want no malice, nor will to hurt; I should be his, if I looked for favour from him; he must and will do so much of his worst to me, as thou wilt permit: whether thou wilt be pleased to restrain him, or strengthen me, thy will be done: O lead me not into temptation: and when thou dost so, show thyself strong in my weakness; arm me for my last brunt, stand by me in my last combat, make me faithful to the death, that thou mayest give me a Crown of life.   

SECT. VIII. Of our carriage towards wicked Spirits, and the ways of our prevalence against them.  
WE have seen what the carriage of the evil spirits is to us; it were fit we should ask in what terms we must stand towards them: That we must maintain a perpetual hostility against them, cannot be doubted; and what ever acts may tend towards the securing of ourselves and the abating of the kingdom and power of darkness those must be exercised by us, to the utmost Justly do we scorn to be beholden to that deadly enemy, in receiving courtesies from him. Favours from such hands, are both sins and curses. He that can so easily transform himself, will seem to do good; What cures doth he often work? what discoveries of thefts? what remedies of diabolical operations and possessions by the agency of Witches, wizards, Magicians? what an ordinary traffic doth he hold of Charms, spells, annulets? Ignorance and superstition are willing enough to be befriended by such pernicious helps, whereby that subtle spirit both wins and kills the soul, whiles he cures the body. It is not easy for a man, where he receives a benefit to suspect an enmity: but withal, it is no less than stupidity, when we find a good turn done us, not to inquire whence it came; and if we find it to proceed from a mischievous intent of further hurt, not to refuse it. That there have been diseases remedied, wounds healed blood staunched, thorns plucked out, Serpents stupefied, winds procured by Charms, is so notorious, that whoso would doubt of it, should make himself a wonder of incredulity; now then, by what power do we think these things done? Natural it cannot be, for there is no such efficacy in words or characters, (being but of mere device and arbitrary imposition) as may produce real effects. Preternatural then it must be; and if so, than either divine, or diabolical: of God, it cannot be; where hath he given warrant to any such practice? where any promise to concur with it? Nay, how oft hath he testified his prohibitions, and detestation of these courses? Needs must it therefore be by devilish operation; whose agents, Witches and Sorcerers are; and whose means of working, are these superstitious inventions; which by a secret compact, receive their force and success from those infernal powers. Let those, then, that have given to Satan their souls, take favours from him for their bodies: Let us that defy the author, abhor the courtesy. Mine enemy offers me a rich garment, I know it is poisoned, else he would not give it me; shall I take it because it is rich, or refuse it because it is infectious? Let me be sick rather than receive help from such hands; Let my goods be lost, rather than my soul hazarded: Let me die rather than owe my life to my maker's enemy.   

SECT. ix.. How we are to proceed against Evil Spirits.  
WE may not yield to that evil one; our next thought must be how to oppose him: Our skilful Leade● hath prescribed a spiritual panoply, both for defence and victory: The helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the girdle of verity, the sword of the spirit; and above all, the shield of faith, wherewith we may be able both to quench and beat back the fiery darts of that wicked one. These well put on, and well managed, shall both secure us, and foil our adversary. But the art of repelling several ●emptations is a long work▪ and wor●hy of a just volume How we ought to deal with evil spirits in their bodily apparitions and possessions, may be seasonable for our present enquiry. Whereas, then, there is pretended to be only a double way of proceeding for their ejection; the one, by Pact, the other by Command: as the former is disclaimed by all faithful Christians; so the other is wont to be challenged and practised by some who lay no small claim to holiness: This we call Exorcism, or Conjuration; a course so well approved of the Churches of the Roman correspondence, as that they make this office one of the seven stairs, whereby they ascend to their highest Order: But so disrelished by us, that we ordinarily place Conjurers in the same rank with Sorcerers and Professors of the Black and damned Arts; although indeed, upon a strict inquisition we shall find them far different; for Conjuration or Exorcism implies a kind of force and violence; whereas those that are in league with Satan, go on, as upon a set match in a way cursedly amicable: this latter is heinously sinful, as being directly against the divine law, and a professed affront to the majesty of God; the former unjustifiable, as being without divine warrant. It is most true, that the Disciples of Christ, and their primitive successors ejected Devils by command; and could rejoice to see those evil spirits subjected to their overruling charge: but withal, the same persons healed all diseases, were perfect poison-proof, spoke divers languages: why should any in these latter times challenge a right of succession i● one of these, and not claim i● in the other? All these wer● given with one, and the sam● breath, continued by the same power; called in and stinted by the same providence, with their fellow-miracles: And if still this privilege were ordinarily left in the Church, it were not a work for puisnes, and novices, but for the greatest Masters, and the most learned, and eminently-holy Doctors, which the times can possibly yield: And if this were really done, as is commonly vaunted by them; yet with how much difference from the Apostolic practice and issue? With them of old, there was no more but a word of command, and an instant ejection: here, what a world of business? what sprinkling? what censing? what blessing of herbs, and other ingredients of suffumigation? what variety of direful ceremonies? and when all is done, the success shuts up no otherwise then in just suspicion or censure.  
Not that free scope is given in these last times, without any check to the tyranny of evil spirits: The good providence of the highest hath not left us unfurnished with means of our freedom and deliverance; whiles we can pray, we cannot be remediless: when the Disciples power stuck at the dispossession of a demoniac, they heard from our Saviour, This kind goes not out but by fasting and prayer. Whence it is plain, that as there are several kinds of Devils, one worse and more powerful than another, so the worst of them are to be vanquished by prayer, sharpened with abstinence. What a difference then there is of times, and means? at the first it was a greater work to disposs●sse Devils by prayer and fasting, then by command: now, it were far greater to do it by a mere command, then by prayer and fasting: That which was then ordinarily done, were now strangely miraculous; and that which is the ordinary course now, was then rare and unusual: The power of an adjuring command we see ceased, the power of fervent prayer can never be out of date. This, and this only is the remedy of both bodily and mental possession: thus, if we resist the devil, he shall flee away from us: Upon the ground of this Scripture it was (as myself was witness) that in our age, Mr. Dayrel, a godly, and zealous preacher, undertook, and accordingly (through the blessing of God upon his faithful devotions) performed, those famous ejectments of evil spirits both at Nottingham and Lanoashire, which exercised the press, and raised no small envy from the gainsayers: Shortly, all that we have to do concerning malignant spirits, is, to repay them with hatred, to persuade our hearts of their continual dogging of us for mischief, to arm ourselves with constant resolutions of resistance, diligently to watch the ways of their tentations, to keep the strongest guard upon our weakest parts, to fortify ourselves by our faithful prayers, and by the virtue of our faith to make him ours, who is able to strengthen us, and to make us more than Conquerors.   

SECT. X. Of the woeful estate of the Souls of the damned.  
IT is not for our discourse to sever those whom the divine Justice will have put together: Devils, and damned Souls. There is none of those evil spirits which doth not (wheresoever he is) carry his hell about him: yet doubtless there are degrees of their torture: Art thou come to torment us before our time, said those Devils to our blessed Saviour; and how do they beg not to be commanded to the deep? Reprobate souls are no less partners of their pain, than objects of their fury. No sooner is this living spirit of ours dislodged from the body, than it is presented as in a privy Sessions, to her Judge; from whom she receives a speedy doom of life, or death: the Sentence is instantly seconded with an answerable execution. The good Angels are glad actors in the happy instalment of the Just, in their glory: The evil angels seize upon the guilty soul, and drag it to their hell: As for any third place, or condition; let them take thought that believe it; For me, I must profess, I never saw any colour of ground for it in the sacred Oracles of God, and shall not easily believe that a truth mainly importing us, would have been concealed from our eyes.  
Woe is me, what a doleful, what a dreadful spectacle is this which is now presented to my soul? the burning Tophet, the bottomless pit, the lake of fire & brimstone, the region of horror and death: wherein there is the perfection of all more than conceivable anguish, the full consummation of the divine vengeance to sinners; exquisiteness, eternity of torment; despair and impossibility of release, or intermission; perpetual dying, perpetual living in a death that can never end. How are my thoughts at a loss in this place of confusion? whether shall I more tremble, O God, at the consideration of thy terrible justice, or be swallowed up with astonishment of these infinite and intolerable sufferings? I should not know thee, if I did not with holy Chrysostom believe, ●hat the utter l●sse of thy presence alone, is as a thousand hells: to be for ever banished from thy sight, in which is the fullness of joy, what can it be less than fullness of torment? But alas, this is far from a mere absence.  
The very sin of the damned is no small part of their hell; for as all their powers, parts, faculties, are as so many subjects of their insupportable pain and torture; so out of that insufferable extremity, they conceive a desperate indignation, and hatred against God; not as he is in himself infinitely good, (for goodness can be no object of hate) but as he is to them, a severe (though most just) avenger of sin; to which is ever added a will obstinately fixed in evil; whiles they were in their way, they were in a possibility of reclamation, now, that they are (in termino) they can be no other than they are; As therefore the glorified souls are in a condition like to the Angels of heaven; so the damned, are in the state of Devils; not more capable of avoiding torment, than sin; equally reserved in everlasting chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day. When (Woe is me) that which seemed little less than infinite, shall yet receive a further aggravation of pain and misery: when the addition of the body shall give a further extent to this woeful cru●lation, without all possibility of release for ever. Alas, what anguish do I feel in myself to see the body of a malefactor flaming at a stake? and yet this is but the act of a few minutes; for the air so vehemently incended, instantly stops the passage of that free breath, which should maintain life, and the flesh, by apposition of that combustible matter, which encompasses it, is soon turned into dead cinders: but, I could conceive of a body frying a whole day in a continued flame: Lord how should I be affected with the sad compassion of that intolerable torment & burn inwardly with the sense of another's pain? but to think of a whole years broiling in such a fire, how can it but turn our bowels within us? What then, Oh, what is it to conceive of lying in a fire more intense then nature can kindle, for hundreds, thousands, millions, yea millions of millions of years, yea further beyond these than these are beyond a minute of time to all eternity? where (besides the endurance) every thing that makes towards the mitigation of other pains, adds to these. Here is society of tortures, but such as tortureth more: Those perpetual howlings, and shriekings, and wailings of so many millions of the damned, were enough to make the place an hell, even to him that should be exempted from those sufferings: Here is some glimpse of knowledge of the blessed estate of glorified souls; enough to heighten their envy, enough to perfect their torment; even as meat is set before that man which is doomed to famish: Shortly, here is exquisite disconsolateness, gloomy darkness, extreme horror, pain insufferable, hideous ejulations, utter hopelesness, vexing indignation, furious blasphemies, infinite dolour and anguish, without relaxation, without pity, without possibility of remedy, or ease, or end. How can it be otherwise? O God, if thy mercy have prepared such an heaven for thy poor servants, whose very best works, for their great imperfection, deserve nothing but punishment, what an hell hath thy justice provided for those enemies of thine, that wilfully despite thee, and offend of malicious wickedness! How infinitely art thou more just than sinners can be miserable!  
But it is enough, O my soul, to have looked into the pit; enough to make thee lament the woeful condition of those that are there shut up: enough to warn thee to avoid those sinful ways, that lead down to these chambers of death: enough to make thee think no tears can be sufficient to bewail the desperate carelessness of wretched sinners, that run on in a known course of wickedness, without any regard of an ensuing damnation: Alas, (so as they are bewitched) they have not the grace to pity themselves; and to foresee the danger of their own utter perdition; which if they could but look into, they would be ready to run mad with horror: Poor souls, could they but recover their reason, they would then think, if a thousand days' pleasure cannot weigh with one hours' torment, what do I buy one hours' pleasure with the torment of more than ten thousand ages? how do I dare to dance for a few minutes upon the mouth of hell with the peril of an everlasting burning? Surely, if Infidelity had not robbed men of their wits, they could not resolve to purchase the momentany pleasures of sin with so dreadful and eternal damnation.   

SECT. XI. A Recapitulation of the whole discourse.  
ANd now, what is to be done? Surely, as some Traveller, that hath with many weary steps passed through divers Kingdoms and Countries being now returned to his quiet home, is wont to solace his leisure by recalling to his thoughts, a short mental landscape of those regions, through which he hath journyed; here conceiving a large Plain, there a Lake; here a tract of Mountains, there a Wood; here a Fen, there a City; here a Sea, there a Desert: so do thou, O my soul, upon this voyage of thine through the great invisible World; bethink thyself of what thou hast seen, and so abridge this large Prospect to thyself, as that it may never be out of thine eye. Think first, that whatsoever thou seest, thou canst not look besides the invisible majesty of thy God; all this material world is his, he is in all, rather all is in him; who so comprehends this Universe, that he is infinitely without it; think of him as with thee, as in thee, as everywhere. Do thou, therefore, ever acknowledge him, ever adore him, ever enjoy him, ever be approved of him: see him from whom thou canst not be hid; rely on him without whom thou canst not subsist; glorify him without whom thou canst not be happy.  
Next, as those that have their celestial life and being by from, and in him, wonder at the glorious Hierarchy of the heavenly Angels, bless him in their pure, and spiritual nature, in their innumerable numbers, in their mighty power, in their excellent knowledge bless him in their comely orders, in their divine offices, in their beneficial employments, in their gracious care, and love of mankind: And (so far as weak flesh and blood may with pure and majestical spirits) converse with them daily, entertain them (so thou knowest they are present) with awful observances, with spiritual allocutions; ask of thyself how pleasing thine actions are to them; receive from them their holy injections; return to them (under thy God) thy thankful acknowledgements; expect from them a gracious tuition here, and an happy transportation to thy glory.  
After these represent to thyself the blessed society of the late charge, and now partners of those heavenly Angels, the glorified Spirits of the just: see the certainty of their immortal being in the state of their separation; see them in the very instant of their parting blessed with the vision, with the fruition of their God; see how they now bathe themselves in that celestial bliss, as being so fully sated with joy and happiness, that they cannot so much as desire more: see them in a mutual interknowledge, enjoying each others blessedness: see the happy communion which they hold with their warfaring brotherhood here upon earth, whose victory and consummation they do in a generality sue for to the throne of Grace: Foresee them, lastly, after a longing desire of meeting with their old, and never forgotten partner, joyfully reunited to their now-glorified bodies, and employing their eternity of life in continual Hallelujahs to him that sits upon the throne. Take up thy rest here, O my soul, for ever, but do not as yet thus end thy prospect; it is good for thee to know worse things. If in Paradise the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil were forbidden to our first parents, the act of the knowledge of both is not forbidden to us; Even to know evil in speculation, may avoid the knowledge of it in a woeful experience. See then, O my soul, the best creature falling from good into evil; in choosing it, see him, by misinclining his own will, apostatising from his infinite creator, and hurled down headlong from the height of heavenly glory, to the bottom of the nethermost hell: see the irrecoverable condition, and dreadful numbers of those precipitated Angels; see their formidable power, their implacable malice, their marvelous knowledge, craft, skill, to do m●schief, their perpetual machinations of our destruction, especially in their last assaults; see their counterfaisance in their glorious, and seemingly-holy apparitions, for a spiritual advantage; and when thou hast recollected thyself to a resolution of defiance, and unweariable resistance, c●st thine eye upon the deplorable condition of those damned souls, whom they have either betrayed by their fraud, or by their violence mastered: and whiles thou dost bless and magnify the divine Justice in their deserved torment; spend thy tears upon those, who would needs spend their eternity of being, in weeping, wailing, and gnashing; And lastly, rouz up thyself in this moment of thy remaining life, unto all careful and fervent endeavours to save thyself, and to rescue others from this fearful damnation.   

SECT. XII. The Comparison of both worlds: & how our thoughts and affections should be taken up with the Invisible World.  
NOw then, having taken a view of both worlds; of the material world, by the eyes of sense and reason; of the Invisible by the eyes of reason and faith; I cannot but admire God in both, and both of them in God; but the Invisible so much more, as it is infinitely beyond the other; For God himself is the world of this world: whom, whiles in the material world we admire in his creatures, in this immaterial we admire in himself. Now, himself must needs be infinitely more wonderful than many worlds (if such there were) of those Creations that should proceed from him.  
As for the parts of the created, but Invisible world, it must neods be said, that the lightsome part of it hath more glory, than any piece of the material world can be capable of: on the contrary, the dark, and privative region of the Invisible world, hath infinitely more horror than the other: for what is the worst and most disconsolate darkness of this visible world, but a privation of the light of the Sun; which yet can never be so absolute as to exclude all imperfect diffusion of those in sensible glimmerings; whereas the darkness of this spiritual world, is an utter privation of the sight of God; joined with an unconceivable anguish Even in nature, spiritual essences must needs be more excellent than bodily, and earthly; and of only spirits it is, that the Invisible world consisteth: Besides, what vanity and inconstancy do we find everywhere, in this material and elementary world? what creature is there which doth not exchange life for death? being for dissolution? sanity for corruption? what uproars do we find in the air? what ●ommotions, and turbulencies upon earth? the best state of things is an uncertain vicissitude; the worst, certain desolation, and destruction: whereas, the Invisible world is setlted in a firm and steady immutability: the blessed Angels and souls of the Saints being so fixed in their glory, that they are now no more capable of alteration. Shortly, he that saw both worlds, shuts up all in one word, The things that are seen are temporal, the things that are not seen eternal.  
As then, I can never open my bodily eyes, but I shall see the material world, and I hope, I shall never see it, but I shall praise the power, and wisdom, and goodness of the infinite creator of it; so shall it be one of the main cares of my life, to bless the eyes of my soul, with the perpetual view of the spiritual and Invisible world: Every action, every occurrent shall mind me of those hidden and better things: and I shall so admit of all material objects, as if they were so altogether transparent, that through them I might see the wonderful prospects of another world. And certainly, if we shall be able so to withdraw ourselves from our senses, that we shall see, not what we see, but what we think, (as it uses to be in the strong intentions of the mind) and shall make earthly things, not as Lunets, to shut up our sight, but Spectacles to transmit it to spiritual objects: we shall lead a life as far rem●ved from those beasts which we see, as near approaching to those Angels whom we converse with, and see not.  
Neither shall it be enough for us to know an Invisible world, as to consider that all we see, is the least part of what we see not; unless we be so affected to the unseen world, as we ought; It is our knowledge that must show us how to be Christians, but it is our affection that must make us so: In the acknowledgement therefore of an Invisible glory, and infiniteness, our hearts must be ever taken up with a continual awe and reverence If some great Prince shall vouchsafe to let me be seen of him, although he please to keep himself unseen of me; 
J●. Leo afric d●scr. ●●t.  and shall only (according to the state of some great Eastern Monarchs) speak to me behind a veil, or Traverse; or (as the great Prete of the South had wont to grace ambassadors) show me only some part of his leg, so as that I may understand him to be present; I should think it concerned me to carry myself in no less seemly fashion towards him, then if I saw his face; for his sight of me, calls for a due regard from me, not my sight of him: Since therefore we have so certain demonstrations of the undoubted presence of God and his holy Angels ever with us, (though not discernible by our bodily eyes) with what fear and trembling, with what reverence and devotion should we always stand, or walk before them? making it our main care to be approved of them, to whom we lie no less open than they are hid to us. As for the glorified Saints of God, who are gone before us to our home; with what spiritual joy should we be ravished at the consideration of their blessed condition? who now have attained to the end of their hopes, glory and bliss without end; ever seeing, ever enjoying him, at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore; how should we bless God for their blessedness, and long for our own?  
Lastly, how should our joy be seasoned with a cautious fear, when we cast our eyes upon those objects of dread, and horror, the principalities and powers of darkness, not so confined to their hell, as to leave us untempted, and increasing their sin and torment by our temptation?  
How should our hearts bleed with sorrow, and commiseration of those wretched souls, which we see daily entangled in the snares of the devil, and captived by him at his will here on earth, and frying under his everlasting torments in the pit of hell?  
- How should our hearts be prepossessed with a most earnest and vigilant care to resist all the dangerous assaults of those wicked spirits, and to prevent the peril of our own like-woeful destruction? If we i. shall make this use of our being in this visible world, happy are we that ever we came into it, more happy in our going out of it: for having thus used it, as if we used it not, we shall so enjoy the other, as those that shall ever enjoy it, and, in it, all glory, honour, immortality.  
Lo then, O my soul, the glorious world which thou art now aspiring unto; yea, whereinto thou art now entering; There, there fix thyself never to be removed: Look down upon these inferior things with an overly contempt; forget what is past, as if it had never been. Bid a willing farewell to this visible world▪ wherein as thy creator hath a just interest of glory, for that the substance of it is the wondrous workmanship of his hands; so Satan (styled he Prince of it) claimeth no small share, in regard of its sinful depravation.  
Farewell then ye frivolous and windy honours, whose management is ever wont to be in others hands, not in our own▪ which have ever been no less fickle than the breath ye have depended upon; whose chief use hath been for temptation, to puff up the heart with a proud conceit of eminence above others; not requiting in the mean while the danger with any solid contentment.  
Farewell ye deceitful▪ Riches, which when we have, we cannot hold; and even while we hold, we cannot enjoy: and if we offer and affect to enjoy, is it not with our spiritual loss? for what love we yield to cast away upon you we abate to him that is the true and all-sufficient good; More then for necessary use, we are never the better for you, often times the worse, your load is more uneasy, than your worth is precious.  
Farewell pleasures (if I ever knew what ye were) which have always wont to afford more sting than honey: whose only scope hath professedly been, under a pretence of delectation, to debauch and emasculate the mind, and to disrelish all spiritual comforts, where your expectation hath been somewhat delightful, your fruition hath been unsatisfiing●, your loose displeasing, your remembrance irksome.  
Farewell friends, some of whose unsteadiness and unfaithfulness hath helped to add to my load, which the fidelity of others had not power to ease, whose love might be apt to condole my shipwreck, but could not spare me a plank to swim to the shore: Shortly, whose common misery may be more ready to receive, then give comfort.  
The honour that I now reach at, is no less than a crown, and that no fading and corruptible (as all these earthly Diadems are) but immarcescibly eternal, a crown of righteousness, a crown of glory. The riches that I am now for are not such as are digged out of the base entrails of the earth, obnoxious to spoil and plunder, but treasures▪ laid up in heaven. The pleasures that I now affect▪ are the fullness of joy at the right hand of the Almighty for eve more. The friends that I ambitiously sue for, are those that shall receive me into everlasting habitation. Lastly farewell vanishing life, and welcome blessed eaernity: Even so Lord Jesu, come quickly.   
FINIS.   

THE CONTENTS.  

THE FIRST BOOK Of God and his Angels.  
THe Preface.  
§ 1. That there is an Invisible world.  
§ 2. The distribution of the Invisible world.  
§ 3. Of the Angels of heaven Their Numbers.  
§ 4. The power of Angels.  
§ 5. The knowledge of Angels  
§ 6. The employment, and operations of Angels.  
§ 7. The Degrees and Orders of Angels  
§ 8. The Apparitions of Angels.  
§ 9 The respects which we owe to the Angels.   

The Second Book. Of the souls of blessed men  
§ 1 Of their Separation and Immortality.  
§ 2. Of the present vision of God upon the egression of the soul.  
§ 3. Of the perpetual vigilance of the soul and its fruition of God.  
§ 4. Of the knowledge of the glorified.  
§ 5. Of the glory of heaven enjoyed by blessed souls.  
§ 6. Wherein the glory of the Saints above consisteth, and how they are employed.  
§ 7. In what terms the departed Saints stand to us, and what respects they bear us.  
§ 8. The reunion of the body to the soul, and both glorified.   

The third Book. Of the Devils and damned Souls.  
§ 1. Of the evil Angels. Of their first sin and fall.  
§ 2. Of the number of Apostate Spirits.  
§ 3. Of the power of Devils.  
§ 4. Of the knowledge and malice of wicked Spirits.  
§ 5. Of the variety of the spiritual assaults of evil Spirits.  
§ 6. Of the apparitions and shapes assumed of the evil Spirits.  
§ 7. The vehemence of Satan's last conflicts.  
§ 8. Of our carriage towards wicked Spirits.  
§ 9 How we are to proceed against evil Spirits.  
§ 10. Of the woeful estate of the damned souls.  
§ 11: A recapitulation of the whole discourse.  
§ 12. The comparison of both worlds. And how our thoughts and affections should be taken up with the Invisible world.   
FINIS.   

COURTEOUS READER, These Books following are Printed for John Place, and are to be sold at his Shop at Furnivalls-Inn Gate in Holborn.  

Books in Folio.  

1. THe History of the World, by Sir Walter Raleigh Knight.  
2. Things new and old, or a storehouse of similes, Sentence, Allegories, Addages, Apologies Divine, moral and political, by John Spencer of Zion college.  
3. Observations on Caesar's Commentaries, by Sir Clement Edmunds Kt.  
4. Shepparts epitome of the Law.  
5. The Reports of the learned Judge Popham, sometime Lord chief Justice of England.  
6. The Reports of the learned Judge Owen, chief Justice of the Common Pleas.  
7. Londinopolis, or a History of the Cities of London and Westminster, by James Howell.  
8. The History of Swedes, Goths, and Vandals, by Olaus Magnus Bishop of Vpsall.  
9 The Reports of the learned sergeant Bridgman.  
10. cowels Interpreter of hard words in the Law, &c.  
11. Maxims of Reason, or the Reason of the Common Law, by Edward wingat▪ Esq late one of the Benchers of Grays-Inn.  
12. The History of Edward the Fourth, of the Wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster, by W.H. Esquire.  
13. The Minister of State, wherein is showed the true use of Policy, by Monsieur de Siton Secretary to Cardinal Richlew, Englished by Sir Henry Herbert Kt.    

Books in Quarto.  

1. The complete Clerk, or scrivener's Guide, containing the Draughts of all manner of precedents, of Assurances, and Instruments now in use, as they were penned by the most learned and eminent Lawyers.  
2. Commentaries on the original Writs, in Natura Brevium, by William Hughes of Grays-Inn Esq.  
3. An exact abridgement of the Common Law, with the Cases thereof drawn out of the old and new Books of the Law, &c. by William Hughes of Grays-Inn Esquire.  
4. An exact abridgement of the Acts and Ordinances of Parliament, beginning at the fourth year of King Charles, to the year, 1656.  
5. Declarations and Pleadings, &c. in the Upper-bench, by William Small of Furnivals-Inn, late one of the Clerks in the Upper-bench Court.  
6. Declarations, Counts and Pleadings in the Common Pleas, by Richard Brownlow Esquire, late Prothonotary; The second part.  
7. A Collection of learned Speeches and Passages in Parliament, beginning in the year, 1640. and ending in the year 1642,  
8. The faithful Counsellor, or the Marrow of the Law in English, by William Sheppard Esquire, now sergeant at Law.  
9 The Dead speaking, or the living man revived, in a Sermon preached at the Funeral of Mr. Sam. Oliver, by Mr Chitwind M. A. with two exhortations of Mr. Thom M. A.  
10. The floating Island, by Dr. Strowd, acted at Oxford.  
11. The Tragedy of the fair Irene the Greek, by Gilbert Sumhoe Esquire.  
12. Witchcraft condemned, or Dr. Lamb revived in the unheard of practice of Anne Bodenham, Arraigned at Sarum Ass●●es. 1653.  
13 bethel, or the form for Families, by Matthew Grifith.   

1. The Jurisdictions of Courts, by John K●tch●n of Barnard's Inn  
2. Books of Entries of all manner of judgements in the Upper-bench and Common Pleas.  
3. The Grounds and maxims of the Law, by Michael Haulke of the Middle Temple.  
4. A perfect Guide for a studious young Lawyer, by Thomas fiddle of Furnival's Inn, Gent.  
5. The Arraignment of the Anabaptiss, in a Dispute at Aberg●veny in Mo●mouthshire, by John Cragge M.A.  
6. A Cabinet of jewels, wherein God's Mercy, man's misery, &c. is set forth in eight Sermons, with an Appendix of the nature of Tithes, and expedience of Marriage, by a lawful Minister, by John Cragge, M.A.   

1. The abridgement of the Lord Dyers Reports, by Sir Thomas Ireland.  
2 Observations on the Office of a Lord Chancellor, by the Lord Elsmore, late Lord Chancellor.  
3. The layman's Lawyer, or the second part of the practic part of the Law, by Tho. Foster Gent.  
4. The County-Court renewed, or all manner of proceedings there, by William Greenwood, student of Furnival's Inn.   

1. Transactions of the High Court of Chancery, collected by W. Tochell.  
2. brooks Cases in English, by J. Marsh of Gray's Inn Barester.  
3. Poems, by Matthew Stevenson▪  
4. Perkins of the Laws of England.  
5. An exact abridgement of Dctoor and Student.  
6. Invisible World, and the Mystery of Godliness, by Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich.  
7. Imposition of Hands, by Jos. Hall, Bishop of Norwich.  
8. Treatise of Phlebotomy, demonstrating the necessity of it in Diseases of Terms of Election, with the use of the Cupping-Glass, with a Treatise of the Crisis written in French by Da. De.  
Plumis Campi chirurgeon, now translated into Engl●sh, by E. W. a wellwisher to physic and chirurgery.  
9 The peacemaker, by William Page Doctor in Divinity.  
10. A Sermon preached at the funeral of Sir James Penyman, by Allen Smalwood.  
11. Clara stella. by R. Heath Esq  
12. Doctor Prestons' Saints Infirmities. 13. A Comment on the Times, or a Character of the Enemies of the Church, by Thomas wall, Mr. in Arts.  
14. A catechism containg the Principles of Christian Religion, written by Moses. Wall.    
FINIS.