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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. 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 noon-day, because they appear not; or, that there is any air wherein they breathe, because nothing appears to them but an insensible vacuity.

Of all other, the Sadducees 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. 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 that, 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 St. Paul's eyes; whose

a Nulla visibilia nisi per invisibilia videntur : tolle mentem, quæ non videtur; et incassum patebit oculus. Greg. b Camer. in Act. xxiii. 8.

profession it is, We look not at the things, which are seen; 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; 2 Cor. iv. 18.

SECT. II.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD.

I CANNOT quite mislike the conceit of Reuchlin and his Cabala, seconded by Galatinus, that as in an egg, the yolk lies in the midst encompassed round with the white, and that again by a film and shell; so the sensible world is inclosed within the intelligible: but, withal, I must add, that here is not a meer involution only, but a spiritual permeation and inexistence; yet 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 and comprehending both the spiritual and sensible world; in comparison of whom, this All is nothing, and but from him had been and were nothing. 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

Omne tempus quo de Deo non cogitat, perdidisse se computat. Bern de spec.

mon.

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 is so perfectly united in one celestial policy, 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, we meet 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, howsoever, 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 inclosed elements, though vast in their several extents, to make up but one sensible world; so shall we 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 beneficient 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 to my poor soul 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 everpresent 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 acknowledgment 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 stupendous 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, 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 choir the Great Shepherd left for a time, to come down to this earthly wilderness) to be the ninety and nine. Lo here, well near a hundred for one. Yet even that number is poor, 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

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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. But, sure I am, had that Dennis of Areopagus been in St. Paul's room, and supplied his rapture, he could no more have computed the number of angels, than the best arithmetician, standing upon a hill, and seeing a huge Xerxes-like army swarming in the valley, can give a just reckoning of the number of those heads.

Surely, when our Saviour speaks of more than twelve legions of angels, (Matt. xxvi. 53.) he doth not say, how many more: if those twelve, according to Jerome's (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 Patmos, as by inspiration from that God, says, 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; Rev. v. 11. Now the elders were but twenty four, 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, 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; Dan. vii. 10. But Bildad the Shuhite, in one word says more than all, Is there any number of his armies? Job xxv. 3.

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 but of 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?

f Forner. de Cust. Angel Serm. iv.

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