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 while, 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, while, 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 enquire, what Mutual Communion there is or may be, betwixt these blessed spirits and us.

And, first, nothing is more plain, than 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 Socrates his Genius; which, as himself reports, was wont to check him, when he went about any unmeet enterprise; and to forward him in good. For the modern times, it is too hard to credit the report of Doway Letters concerning our busy neighbour Pere Cotton, 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, as to believe that Jo. Carera", 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,

Ad nutum et arbitrium sibi assistentis Dæmonis, vel declinabat negotia, vel petebat. Minut. Fœlicis Octav.

a Duac. 18. Feb. 1627. ex literis Pet. Rav.

VOL. VIII.

b Forn. Ser. v. B b

for a time, an intermission? Or, that the aged Capuchin 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 the human shape, for the performing of his canonical hours? Or, that the angels helped their St. Gudwal, and St. Oswald Bishop of Worcester, to say his mass? Or, that Isidore, the late Spanish peasant, newly sainted amongst good company by Gregory the fifteenth, serving a hard master, had an angel to make up his daily task at his plough, while the good soul was at his public devotions; like as another angel supplied Felix, the lay Capuchin, in tending his cattle? Or, that Francisca Romana, lately canonized, 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 Wirtzburg reports from Gulielmus Baldesanus, not without many improbable circum

stances.

These, and a thousand more of the same brain, 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, than beyond the Alps) in a visible form, with a naked sword in his hand, which he glitteringly brandished up and down; foyning 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, than to Adelbertus the German heresiarch, condemned in a council of Rome, by Pope Zachary, 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-floor; David, by the threshing-floor of Araunah. What should I mention the Prophets Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Ezekiel, and the rest? In the New Testament, Joseph, Mary, Zachariah the father of John Bap

c Ignat. Loiol. Xavier. Theresia. Isidor. Philippus. Nerius. 4. Id. Martii. anno 1602.

tist, 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. 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 mid way 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 older the Church 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 the Israelites, who, while 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 latter 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 Phil. Melanchton, as an eye-witness, reports. Simon Grynæus, 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 Grynæus, 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 retraction of those misopinions. The preacher gave good words and a fair semblance to Grynæus; desirous of further and more particular conference with him; each imparting to other their names and lodgings: yet inwardly, as being stung with that just reproof, he resolved a

Theod. I. iii. c. 11.

revenge, by procuring the imprisonment; and, if he might, the death of so sharp a censurer. Grynæus, 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, Melanchton 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 Grynæus, and to carry him to prison; willing him to charge Grynæus, with all possible speed to flee out of Spires; and requiring Melanchton to see that this advantage were not neglected: which said, the old man vanished out of his sight. Instantly Melanchton, returning to his companions, recounted unto them the words of this strange monitor, and hastened the departure of Grynæus accordingly; who had no sooner boated himself on the Rhine, than he was eagerly searched for at his said lodging. 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. Other, 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, Cæsarius, Palladius: and the like delusions may still be set on foot, while Satan, who loves to transform himself into an angel of light, laboureth by these means to nurse silly souls in superstition: too many whereof have swallowed the bait, though others have descried the hook. 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 in

e Goulart. Histoir memor. ex Melanct. in Dan. c. 20.

f Bromiard. Sum. prædicant. v. Humilitas.

sensible 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 St. Maderne's, in Cornwall, was wrought upon a poor cripple ; whereof, besides the attestation of many hundreds of the neighbours, I took a strict and personal examination, in that 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. The like may we say of John Spangenberg, Pastor of Northeuse: no sooner was that man stept out of his house, with his family, to go to the Baynes, 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 Jerome tells us, that Anthony 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 St. 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

S. Maternus.

i At Whitsuntide.

h One John Trelille.

Sim. Goular. ex J. Manlio.