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There is joy in heaven, in the presence of the angels for sinners repenting; Luke xv. 7, 10: in the presence of the angels, therefore, on the part of the saints: none but they dwell together.

O 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 temptations, 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 could, we should have no reason to disclaim it.

Johannes à Jesu-Maria', a modern Carmelite, writing the life of Theresia, Sainted lately by Gregory the fifteenth, 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, is said thus to bespeak him; "We citizens of heaven, and ye exiled pilgrims on earth, ought to be linked in a league of love and purity, etc." Methinks 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 mis-doubted 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 mouth. For thus he goes on, "We celestial ones behold the Deity, 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's 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

&c.

Joh. à Jesu Mar. 1. v. de vit. Theres. c. 3.

8 Nos cœlestes, ac vos exules, amore ac puritate fœderati esse debemus,

h Nos cœlites intuentes Divinitatem, vos exules eucharistiam venerantes ; quam eo affectu quo nos Divinitatem suspicimus, colere debetis. Ibid.

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.

With more safety and assurance may we enquire 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 co-essential receptacle: wherein it holds itself so interested, as that it knows there can be no full consummation of its glory, without the other half. It was not therefore more loth 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 spiritualized, it is every way become pliable to his renewed partner, the soul; and both of them to their infinitely glorious Creator.

SECT. VIII.

THE RE-UNION 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 partners, 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 choir 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 loth to bid a cheerful good-night to this piece of myself, which shall more surely rise than lie down; and not more surely rise, than 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 eternal glory. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

THE INVISIBLE WORLD.

THE THIRD BOOK:-OF THE EVIL ANGELS.

SECT. I.

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, of the order of the Premonstratenses; 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, called 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 into them, without loss of himselfa.

:

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 while 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

a

Fr. Haytonus in Passagio Terræ Sanctæ. An. 1300. editus à Nicol. Salcone.

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 Trinitarians: 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 there 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 swerves from the order and direction of the principal, straightways a fault thereupon ensues; as when the leg, by reason of crookedness, fails of the performance of that motion, which the appetitive power enjoined, a 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 and self-respective good be suffered to take the wall of the best and 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

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