moting of our health, I mean not only of the health of the soul, but of our bodily health: no question but the devils, who are our enemies, and continually stand about us, would quickly rush upon our bodies, and either tear them, or affect them with divers maladies, but that the good angels do defend us by divine command. I cannot deny, but that sometimes God afflicts men by the ministry of his holy and blessed angels, for Sodom was destroyed by the angels, and Senacharib's host was slain by the angels; and David faw the angel of the Lord, having a drawn sword in his hand, and stretched out over Jerusalem; and an angel of the Lord smote Herod, and he was eaten of worms; but this is not God's ordinary dispensation towards his saints. Surely their ordinary employments, and wherein they delight, is according to the promise, He shall give his angels charge over thee.

3. They carefully furnish us with all other necessaries for this life. Thus when the Israelites were in the wilderness, they were provided for by the angels: Man did eat of angel's food, be sent them meat to the full or as others translate, Man did eat the bread of the mighties, he sent them meat to satiety: It is all one, for what is the bread of the mighties, but the bread of the angels, which are mighty strength? And manna is called their bread, either because it came from heaven, the habitation of the angels, or because it was excellent, so as the angels (if they needed any food) might eat it, or especially (as I think) because God sent it by the ministry of angels, they were the purveyors of it for the Israelites. Thus when Elijah went into the wil derness, and lay and slept under a juniper tree, Be bold an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat: and he looked and behold there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruise of water on his head, and he did eat, and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise, and eat.

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The same God that provided for him in the time of drought by the ministry of ravens, now again fed him by the ministry of angels. I know these provisions were miraculous, but where no miracles are, the angels have an hand even in ordinary provisions. The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him: And what then? O fear the Lord ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him; the young lions do lack, and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. I know we see not the angels providing for us, but what then? Abraham's servant saw no angel going along with him, and yet Abraham could say, The Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house, and from the land of my kindred, be shall send his angel before thee: The Israelites saw no angel going along with them, and yet the Lord could say, I will send an angel before thee, and I will drive out the Canaanites, &c. For my part I see no angel removing me from place to place, yet I am fully persuaded, that no minister of Christ removes his station, or goes to a people as their pastor, but an angel of God, or the God of angels doth so order it: This is the office of angels (saith Zanch) by a command of God to send the doctors of the church to such or such a people: accordingly it was an angel that appeared to Paul in a vision by night, saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. Eusebius tells a like story of Alexander bishop of Jerusalem, that after his agonies, and constancy of confession shewed in the persecution of Severus, he was admonished by a vision in the night season to make his journey up to Jerusalem, and drawing near to the city, a vision, with plain words was given to certain chief heads of Jerusalem to go out of the gates of the city, and there to receive the bishop appointed them by God: And though vision or revelation, I have none, yet (as the most reverend doctor said) Since I am convinced that the unfelt hands of the angels 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 stroak in ordering all my concernments for this life. It is true, their appearings are ceased, but not their workings; their converse is not so sensible, yet it is as real as ever it was before,

SECT. III.

Of the Kinds of Angel-ministration at that Time, as to our Souls.

1. The angels declare to us what is the will and mind of God. Thus Daniel being troubled with the visions of his head, he went near unto one of the angels which stood by, and asked him the truth and meaning of them. So he told me, (saith Daniel) and made me know the interpretation of the things. And in another vision, when Daniel sought the meaning: Behold there stood before me (said he) as the appearance of a man, and I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. -And he said unto me, understand O son of man. And at another time, the man Gabriel, whom he had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched him about the time of the evening oblation, and informed him, and talked with him, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding: Nothing is more usual in God's word, than for angels to inform the saints what is the will and mind of God; the conception of Christ, and the birth of Christ, and the death of Christ, and the resurrection of

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Christ, and the ascension of Christ, and his return to judgment, were all told by the angels, only you may look upon these as extraordinaries, and apparitions of angels, and such teachings, or enlightenings of our understanding in these days you cannot expect. All this I grant, and yet withal I had, that if visibly they do not teach us, they may do it invisibly; yea, and I very believe they do in ordinary, though invisibly, teach and instruct all the people of God.

But how can that be, when they do neither speak to us, nor reason with us after the manner of men ?

I answer; They have other ways of speaking, or of reasoning with us. As――

1. They understand us, though we neither speak to them, nor reason with them : One of our light, in his Child of light, walking in darkness, tells us, that evil angels know much within us, and to that purpose they have more advantages than we men have to know one another by. For-

1. Those spirits can discern all corporeal actions, and though the species, in them, and their manner of knowing corporeal things differ from ours, yet they are anological with ours.

2. They make it their business to study men, it is their trade to go up and down, and consider men; Hast thou not considered (says God to Satan) my servant fob?

3. They are, and can be present at all our more retired actions; they are with us at bed and board, in all companies, and in all solitary places.

4. By what they see outwardly of our actions, they may guess at our inwards, which are as the principles of them.

5. They have an insight into the infancy, and the images therein, which follow and imitate the inward thoughts of the mind, as the shadow doth the body: in this respect they go into a room further than we can go, yea, into a room next to the privy cham

ber, which yet remains fast locked up unto them. This last goes beyond all the former; and yet (saith my author) all divines grant, that the devils may know and discern our phantasms intuitive, as we do things which are present before us.

6. As they may see into the fancy, so if God permit, evil angels may go into the head, and see those very images and species in the fancy, that are for present in direct conjunction with the understanding, and which is then thinking and musing of. Indeed the immediate knowledge of our thoughts, and hearts and understandings, is proper only to God; I the Lord, search the heart, I try the reins; yet arguitive, and as they do transpire, and appear in the images of the fancy, and so quasi in aliis, and mediately, they may be very far discerned, and looked into by evil angels, and so by discerning those very phantasms, which the understanding actually at present vieweth, and maketh use of, they may then judge what it is, that the mind for the present is musing on; all this is discussed at large concerning the evil angels.

And if the evil angels may know thus much of what is within us, do not the good angels know thus much? The evil angels have by their sin lost much of their knowledge, and therefore are called darkness, and the power of darkness, because they are exceeding dark in themselves, and in comparison of the holy angels, but the good angels never sinned, and therefore never were deprived of the least measure of knowledge conferred on them. I must therefore conclude, that without speaking to them, or reasoning with them after the manner of men, they understand as well, or wherein they do not, God is pleased often to discover it to them by an especial dispensation, of favour and grace: as to the angel in Daniel, was revealed the mystery of the seventy weeks.

2. We may understand them, though they never speak to us, or reason with us, and so we are capable