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: God, saith he, shall send his angel before thee, that thou mayest take a wife thence; Gen. xxiv. 7. 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's firstborn 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. Gehazi 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.

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

? Qualiter pueri, inter tot infantiæ discrimina, &c. Gers. Serm. de Angel.

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 Job's 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 struck 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, than with curious scanning?

Neither is it otherwise in those violent hurricanes, 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 meteor; 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 a higher efficiency. I could instance irrefragably, in several tempests and thunder-storms, which, to the unspeakable terror of the inhabitants, were seen, heard, felt, in the western partsP;

In the Churches of Foye Totness, and Withycomb. Of the same kind were those prodigious tempests at Milan; an. 1521. and at Mechlin; Aug. 7, an. 1527.

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, shewed them plainly to be wrought by a stronger hand than nature's 9.

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, (such a one have I 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? 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 than too little stroke, in ordering all my concernments. O ye Blessed Spirits, many things I know ye do for me, which I discern not while yet you 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

a Histoires Prodigieuses de P. Boaistuan, c. 8. Of the same kind was that fearful tempest, which, in the 4th year of King William Rufus, blew down 600 houses in London; and, reaving Bow Church, carried away six beams of twenty-seven foot long; and struck them into the earth, the streets being then unpaved, so deep, that only four foot remained above ground. Chron. of Sir Robert Baker, of the reign of Will. 2.

Mr. William Cook, senior, of Waltham Holy Cross.

Marc. Aurel. Antoninus his Meditat. concerning himself. 1. i. cap. 17. The like he reports of Chryses, ibid.

angels, have their Heights of Excellency and Glory. He, who 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; Cherubim, as lords of the cabinet-council; Thrones, the entire favourites, in whom the Almighty placeth his rest1.

In the second, of universal regency, finding Dominions to be the great officers of state, who, as counsellors, marshals, treasurers, govern the affairs of the world; Mights, to be 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; 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 goodness 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; Dominions, sixty above Mights; Thrones, seventy above Dominions; Cherubim, eighty above Thrones; Seraphim, ninety times exceeding the Cherubim.

t Ut Commensales Deo: Forner. Ser. iv. de Cust. Ang. or, as Cassaneus, Cubicularii et servitutes throni: Glor. mund. 4. part.

Forner. de Custod. Ang. Serm. v.

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; especially when I see him, that was rapt into the third heaven, varying the order of their places in the several mentions of them*.

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 choirs of these heavenly hierarchies, according to their dispositions and demeanors 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 Maker's; to the society of Thrones, those, who do so inure 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 Cherubim, 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, than 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 chuse 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, instead of a heavenly order of remuneration! Sure I am, that the least degree, both of saints

Compare Eph. i. 21. with Col. i. 16.

y S. Matild. 1. Revel, c. 54. citat. etiam a Forner.